


and dance by the light of the moon

by AliuIce0814



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - It's a Wonderful Life, Gay Bucky Barnes, Great Depression, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Self-Aware Gay Bucky, Self-Aware Queer Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-09 10:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5537375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliuIce0814/pseuds/AliuIce0814
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is this the ear you can’t hear out of?” Bucky asks. Steve, bent over behind the counter, doesn’t acknowledge him one bit. Bucky cups his chocolate-sticky hand around that deaf ear and whispers, “Steve Rogers, I’ll love you ‘til the day I die.” A Stucky redux of "It's A Wonderful Life."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: christmas eve 1946

_I owe everything to Steve Rogers. Help him, dear Father._

**Joseph, Jesus and Mary. Help my friend, Dr. Rogers.**

He never thinks about himself, God, that's why he's in trouble.

_Steve is a good guy. Give him a break, God._

**I love him, dear Lord. Watch over him tonight. Help me bring him back.**

Please, God, something's the matter with Daddy.

_Please bring Daddy back._


	2. 1: i got them hesitation shoes, winter 1927

             The dock leading from the old Irish neighborhood to the Hudson is slick with ice. Bucky’s ma told him not to go sledding on it under any circumstances, but Howard Stark and his gang dragged out a snow shovel and are skidding around on it. Bucky watches Howard skid past, yelling “Hee-haw!” and waggling his fingers by his ears. Bucky “hee-haw”s back. So do Stevie Rogers and Peggy Carter, standing at the end of the dock. Howard slides to a stop by their feet and rolls off the shovel onto the dock. Another two feet, and he’d be in the water.

            “Good job, Howard,” Stevie Rogers says. His cheeks are pink above his hand-knitted scarf. Bucky tucks his nose deeper into his soft scarf to hide. Bucky’s usually one of the bolder kids in the neighborhood, but something about Steve makes him shy. Maybe it’s because he’s twelve, two years older than Bucky, or maybe it’s because of how confident he is—“cocky,” Bucky’s mom says disapprovingly when Stevie comes back into the apartment building with his nose bloodied from a mismatched fight against bullies. Steve’s skinny as all get out from being sick so much. But his bravado makes him seem huge.

            Steve cups his mitten-covered hands around his pink mouth. “An’ here comes the scare-baby, our own English, Peggy Carter.”

            Peggy shoves Steve as she goes past him, dragging the shovel behind her. “I’m not scared,” she calls over her shoulder in her posh accent. Bucky doesn’t get why her parents dragged her outta prissy old England and brought her here to Brooklyn. She sure didn’t fit in to the rough neighborhood until Howard and Steve took her in. But she’s tough enough that she pulls the shovel to the start of the dock, by Bucky. She takes a deep breath and starts running forward with it. Once the shovel starts sliding across the ice, she jumps on it. “Attagirl, Peggy,” Howard and Stevie call. Bucky whoops. “Attagirl, Pegs!”

            Peggy’s flying along on the shovel. The ice pops and cracks beneath her. It’s amazing. Bucky’s thinking that he wants a turn next—and then Peggy and the shovel careen clear over the edge of the dock.

            Nobody else has a chance to move—Steve kicks off his boots and dives in after her. The cold air paralyzes Bucky’s chest and throat. Howard’s mouth is moving like he’s talking, but all Bucky can hear is splashing. Steve just got over pneumonia. What if he drowns? What if he and Peggy both drown?

            Then two sets of mittens are scrabbling at the side of the dock, and Howard’s yelling, “Help me, Barnes!” Bucky slides forward, tripping on chunks of ice, and drops to his knees by Howard. They grab Peggy first and haul her shaking body up. Then they grab Stevie’s hands. For a sickening moment, Bucky thinks he won’t be able to pull him out of the water. His sodden coat is too heavy. But then he’s up and over the edge, dropping to his knees and coughing up water.

            “Steve,” Peggy sobs. Her curls are plastered to her head. Her face is a mess of snot and tears.

            Steve reaches out a hand blindly. Instead of Peggy, he catches Bucky’s arm. Bucky holds his breath, heart pounding in his ears. “M’alright,” Steve gasps. “M’alright.”

\---

            He ends up getting pneumonia again, Steve does. He bounces back from it faster than usual—his ma tells the other kids that he’s too stubborn to stay in bed for long. But infection settles into his left ear. By the time he’s back in school, and back at work at Mr. Gower’s pharmacy, his hearing’s gone forever. Every time Bucky passes him on the street, he stares at that ear and shudders at the remembered sound of frantic splashing.


	3. 2. seek a certain lad I've had in mind (spring 1928)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's poison, I tell you! It's poison!"

            The pharmacy bell jingles when Bucky runs in the door. Steve’s wiping down the ice cream counter with a wet rag. He smiles when he looks up and sees Bucky. That sweet grin makes Bucky warm all through his arms and legs and stomach. He hops up on a stool. “Hey, Stevie.”

            “Hey, Buck. You hungry?”

            “I’m still looking.” Bucky thinks he wants chocolate, but Mr. Gower, the pharmacist, has ordered a few new flavors since the last time Bucky was in here. He swings his legs, letting his feet butt against the counter. Steve finishes wiping the counter and tosses the rag away. Bucky tilts his head to one side and watches him pick up his magazine. Stevie’s so small, all skin and bones, but Bucky thinks his wrists are awful pretty, in a delicate way. He’s two years older than Bucky, too. Sometimes that makes him seem more sophisticated than anyone.

            Only Bucky’s ma knows how he feels about Steve Rogers. “Those feelings are for girls,” she told him the first time he said something. The second time he mentioned it, she sighed. “God doesn’t,” she started, and then stopped, the way grown-ups did when they weren’t sure how to explain something important. “The other kids will whip you for something like that.”

           “Not if I whip them first.”

           “If you were any older you could get arrested.”

            “Can't get arrested if you don't get caught,” Bucky said in a voice the nuns call “mulish.”

            Ma rolled her eyes to Heaven. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, boy. It’s on your soul.”

            Bucky’s not too worried about his soul. He keeps his shoes shined, and he goes to Confession before Communion even though the box gives him the creeps. He is worried about what Steve Rogers thinks about him. “You got a best girl?” he asks as casually as he can.

            Steve snorts. “What would I want a best girl for?”

            “You’re reading that National Geographic. Figured you’d want to travel, get a whole pack of ‘em.”

            “What, a harem? Too much work. You want ice cream or not?”

            Bucky’s whole chest loosens at Steve’s smile. He drums his feet against the counter. “Chocolate.”

            “With coconut?” Steve asks. Bucky pulls a face. Steve raises his eyebrows. “What d’you got against coconut, Barnes?”

            “It’s gross.”

            “Do you know where coconuts come from?” Steve says, exasperated. He sets his magazine in front of Bucky and shows him pictures of sandy beaches with palm trees. “Hawaii, Fiji. I’m going there someday, and I’m never coming back.”

            “Take me with you,” Bucky wants to say. He rolls his eyes instead. “Gimme my ice cream, Rogers.”

            “Fine, fine.” Steve scoops chocolate ice cream into a bowl and then sprinkles coconut on top. Bucky scowls at him as he pushes the bowl across the counter. “Try it. You’ll like it.”

            “Sure,” Bucky grouses. He didn’t want coconut. But Steve gave it to him. Steve’s smiling at him, too, all pink lips. Kind of like a girl, he thinks desperately, even though bony Stevie’s such a scrappy kid that no one could ever make that mistake. Steve whistles a little snippet of one of those big band songs from the radio.

            A clang echoes from the back room. “You’re not paid to be a canary,” a rough voice calls. Steve glances toward the door between the front room and Mr. Gower’s workspace, his smile and whistle fading. Bucky follows his gaze. Old Mr. Gower is never personable, but he seems positively mean today. He’s staggering around the back room. Bucky leans back in his stool to get a better look and catches a glimpse of a whiskey bottle. He sits up straight and averts his gaze. If his dad’s taught him one thing, it’s to never look at a drunk.

            Steve picks up his rag again and immediately drops it. “Damn,” he mumbles. He crouches down to pick it up. As Bucky stares at the crooked line of his spine, inspiration strikes him. He goes up on his knees and leans his torso across the counter until his mouth is right by Steve’s ear.

            “Is this the ear you can’t hear out of?” he asks. Steve, bent over behind the counter, doesn’t acknowledge him one bit. Bucky cups his chocolate-sticky hand around that deaf ear and whispers, “Steve Rogers, I’ll love you ‘til the day I die.”

            He sits back as quickly as he can. His heart’s pounding in his chest with the nerve of what he’s done. What if it wasn’t Steve’s deaf ear, and he was only pretending not to hear? What if he tells the other kids? Or Father Callaghan? What if he stands up and slugs Bucky?

            But he doesn’t. Steve just straightens up and keeps cleaning like he didn’t hear anything. Bucky sighs and pokes moodily at his coconut shavings with his spoon. Part of him wishes Steve had heard.

            Steve makes a surprised noise. Bucky looks up from his ice cream to find him holding a telegram. His forehead’s all wrinkled. “What’s wrong?” Bucky asks. Steve shakes his head slowly. Bucky kneels up on the stool to peer over Steve’s shoulder at the telegram. MR. GOWER I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON DIED WEDNESDAY OF INFLUENZA STOP EVERYTHING POSSIBLE WAS DONE FOR HIS COMFORT STOP it says. Bucky’s stomach drops clear through his knees. He can tell by the tight line of Steve’s spine that Steve feels just as awful.

            “Don’t say a word,” Steve says in a low voice. “Just eat your ice cream, Buck. Okay?”

            Bucky sits back on his stool quickly. His ice cream’s got that coconut gunk on top. But he doesn’t want to disappoint Steve, so he takes a bite. It tastes terrible. He swallows and looks up. Steve’s watching him with those big blue eyes. Bucky forces a smile. “Great!”

            “Told you,” Steve says. “Next time you should try—”

            “Steven. Steven, get back here,” Mr. Gower calls.

            Steve’s worried frown comes back. “Yessir,” he says, walking quickly into the back room. Bucky picks at his ice cream. He can hear their low voices but not the words. He can smell Mr. Gower’s booze, though. It makes the coconut taste even worse.

            When Steve comes out of the back room, his frown lines are even deeper than before. He’s holding a box of pills like he’s supposed to go on a medicine run, but he doesn’t leave the pharmacy in a rush like he usually does when he’s running errands. He loiters behind the counter for a minute, shaking the pills around. He fusses with the ice cream spoons.

            “Bucky,” he says quietly. “Bucky, can you keep a secret?”

            Bucky’s heart does flip-flops. “Sure, Stevie.”

            Steve glances toward the back room, then leans over the counter, mouth right by Bucky’s ear. “I think Mr. Gower put something bad in these pills.”

            Bucky jerks back. He can feel his eyes going wide. “What?”

            “Shh. Keep your voice down.” Steve looks toward the back room again. “It’s supposed to be for the Blaines. Robbie’s got diphtheria, and he’s real sick. But Mr. Gower didn’t get the powder from the right bottle. I’ve been watching him work for months. I know what medicine comes from what container, and this isn’t it.”

            “Then what is it?” Bucky whispers.

            Steve swallows. “Rat poison. Not on purpose,” he adds quickly when Bucky gasps. He can’t help that sharp noise. His dad always says that the poison that got him so sick in the trenches was rat poison. He can’t imagine a little kid getting fed that stuff. “Not on purpose, just because he’s so upset on account of his son dying. He’s not thinking straight. I can’t take this over there, Buck.” His eyes are wide, pleading.

            “Then what are you going to do?”

            Steve opens his mouth to say something when the phone in back rings. Steve’s whole body seizes up. He stands there, eyes wide, and Bucky stays still, too, just to listen:

             “Why, that medicine should have been there an hour ago,” Mr. Gower rasps. “It'll be over in five minutes, Mrs. Blaine.”

               The phone slams onto the hook. Bucky cringes. Steve’s still standing frozen when Mr. Gower storms out of the back room. His eyes are bloodshot. Like Dad on a binge. Bucky slides down on his stool and makes himself as small as possible. “Where's Mrs. Blaine's box of capsules?” Mr. Gower snarls. Steve stares at him. He grabs Steve by the front of his button-down shirt and drags him into the back room.  “Did you hear what I said?”

               “Yes, sir, but….”

                Crack! Bucky flinches. Whack goes a hand on skin, and Steve yelps. Bucky can’t stand it. He jumps out of the stool and runs to the doorway to see what’s going on. Sure enough, Mr. Gower’s whaling away on Steve, smacking every inch of his face and head. Steve’s doing his best to cover his ears, but his deaf one’s already bleeding. Bucky’s feet are sealed to the floor.

               “What kind of tricks are you playing, anyway? Why didn't you deliver them right away? Don't you know that boy's very sick?”

                Steve’s sobbing, snot all down his front. There’s blood oozing red from his ear. “You're hurting my sore ear,” he gasps. Bucky balls his hands into fists.

               “You lazy loafer!”

                “Mr. Gower, you don't know what you're doing. You put something wrong in those capsules. I know you're unhappy. You got that telegram, and you're upset. You put something bad in those capsules. It wasn't your fault, Mr. Gower.” He fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a package with one shaking hand. Mr. Gower tears the box away from him. Bucky wonders wildly if he’ll beat Steve with it. Steve takes a trembling breath and wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Just look and see what you did. Look at the bottle you took the powder from. It's poison!  I tell you, it's poison!  I know you feel bad... and...”

            Steve steps back, toward Bucky. Bucky wants to step forward and protect him, but what good would it do? He stands there, heart in his throat, as Steve wraps both arms around his head to protect it. Mr. Gower looks over at the shelf where he keeps his big bottles of powders. He frowns and rips open the package he took from Steve. The pills scatter on the floor. He snatches one up and breaks it in half. White powder spills across his fingertips. He touches one shaking finger to his tongue. His eyes go huge. He flings the package on the ground and lurches toward Steve.

            Steve stumbles backward, whimpering. Bucky can’t stand it, how terrified he looks with his ear bleeding. He jumps forward, ready to pull Steve back to safety, but Mr. Gower gets there first. Steve yelps when he grabs his shoulders. “Don’t hurt my sore ear again,” he begs. But Mr. Gower doesn’t hit him—he pulls him into a hug, a real tight one, on his knees so he’s Steve’s height and everything. His shoulders shake so hard that Steve shakes too. They’re both crying, Bucky realizes. He backs out of the room, swallowing hard.

            “I won't ever tell anyone,” Steve says as Bucky keeps going back, all the way to the counter. His ice cream’s melted into a lump of chocolate and shaved coconut. The whole mess turns Bucky’s stomach. He puts his head down in his arms and listens to Steve talking. He’s reassuring Mr. Gower: “I know what you're feeling. I won't tell anyone. Hope to die, I won’t.”

             “Oh, Steve,” Mr. Gower says. Bucky bursts into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up tomorrow: high school graduation, the Charleston, and sexual tension.


	4. 3. won't you come out tonight? summer 1935

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Boys and girls and music! Why do you need gin?"

             “Now, James,” Mom says sternly as she straightens Bucky’s tie. “Don’t you go picking up any girls at this dance.”

               Bucky squirms away from her and rolls his eyes. “It’s graduation, Ma,” he says slowly, as if he’s talking to someone who’s particularly and profoundly stupid. “I ain’t interested in the girls. I’m interested in the gin.”

                Ma’s mouth makes a thin line. “Boys and girls and music! Why do you need gin?”

              “Don’t wait up for me.” Bucky gives Ma a winning smile and ducks out the door. She’s yelling after him, but he doesn’t listen. He’s gotten good at ignoring her.

               Bucky would have a good time at his graduation dance. He could pick up a couple dames like his mom was so worried about, or drink that gin, or maybe spin Peggy around the dance floor if he struck out with the other girls. But he doesn’t have any intention of going to graduation. Instead of turning left, toward school, he turns right, toward Harlem. Toward big bands and cheap liquor and guys who suck off other guys in back rooms.

               Bucky’s walked this path so often, drunk, sober, and in-between, that he’s in front of his favorite bar before he knows it. He’s heard that the Mob’s paid off the cops for the night. Sure enough, the place is hopping, fairies wandering outside in full makeup like they can’t get arrested for it. One of them catches Bucky just inside the door and kisses his cheek. “Congratulations, graduate,” he says.

               Bucky smirks. “Hey, Gene.” Gene’s far more broad-shouldered than most fairies—he works at the docks during the daytime and keeps offering Bucky a job there. But at the bars, Gene’s the one with the reddest lipstick and the shiniest dresses. Bucky pulls him in for a kiss on the lips. It gets dirty fast, all tongue and teeth. Bucky has lipstick smeared all over his face by the time he steps away. Gene swats his ass and lets him go, laughing his big, booming laugh.

               Bucky’s halfway through his second beer when he sees him, blond hair looking like a halo in the reflection from the mirror ball. He’s still skinny, still pale, and still the most gorgeous man Bucky’s ever seen. Bucky’s heart flips over and dives straight into his stomach. He never thought he would see Stevie Rogers here. Saintly Steve, who always went to Mass, at the queerest bar in Harlem? Bucky gets over his shock in favor of action. He chugs the rest of his beer and winds his way through the crowd.

            Some boring little dweeb is talking Steve’s ear off when Bucky gets over to them. “And the next thing I know, some guy came up and tripped me. That's the reason why I came in fourth. If it hadn't been for that—”

             The guy keeps talking, but Bucky ignores him. He touches the crook of Steve’s arm. Steve whirls around, eyes wide and fists raised. Bucky puts his hands up in a lazy surrender. He makes himself smirk as if he isn’t feeling sick from nerves. “Heya, Steve.”

             “Bucky!” Steve’s face splits into the biggest grin Bucky’s ever seen on him. Then he drags Bucky into a hug. Bucky’s so stunned that he almost doesn’t hug back. Steve’s quick about it, though, so it doesn’t matter a whole lot. When he steps back, he’s relaxed into an easier smile that still lights up his blue eyes. “How are you? I talked to you in—God, almost a year, I guess. Aren’t you graduating?”

            “Graduated today.” Bucky’s surprised at how smooth his own voice is. He feels like he’s going to stutter like a damn fool. “The dance was tonight.”

            “But you came here instead. I’m glad you did.” Steve sounds so earnest that Bucky’s heart skips around some more. “I don’t come here very often, and I, uh, felt pretty nervous.”

            “Ah, don’t worry about it. Police got bribed.”

            “Oh, no, I know. I mean about….” Steve’s cheeks turn pink. “Y’know. Dancing.”

            “What, you got two left feet or something?”

            Steve grimaces. “And no idea how to even ask anyone.”

            “You kidding? Looking like you do?” Bucky lets his eyes wander the length of Steve’s body. He’s not wearing much different from his everyday clothes: nicer suspenders, maybe, and he’s shined his shoes. But he’s got those red cheeks and long lashes without wearing any makeup—“They’ll eat you up without you saying a word.”

            “Aw, shove it, ya jerk,” Steve says easily. “I’m being serious.”

            “So’m I.”

            Maybe Bucky lets his voice get huskier on purpose. Maybe he trails his eyes the length of Steve’s body again. Steve’s skin flushes red. Bucky bites his lip. He wants to know how far beneath Steve’s shirt that blush goes. He wonders if a back room is open. He wonders if Steve’d be amenable to fucking him in a bathroom stall.

            A sharp whistle stops the music. “A’right,” Gene roars from a microphone he’s stolen from the band. “It’s time for everybody’s favorite: the Charleston competition! Me and my fellow judges will be comin’ around and tapping people out. Last couple standing wins free drinks for the rest of the night!”

            Everybody on the dance floor cheers. “Oh, jeez,” Steve laughs. “Just what I needed. I’m gonna go sit down, Buck.”

            “Come on, Rogers,” Bucky wheedles. “Dance with me. I don’t care if you’ve got two left feet. I can steer you right.”

            “No, no, you don’t want to dance with me.”

            Inspiration strikes Bucky. “You a chicken?” he asks. Steve’s laughter cuts off abruptly. Bucky smiles viciously. “Stevie Rogers, too scared to Charleston. Chicken little punk. Bawk-bawk-bawk.” He tucks his hands under his armpits and flaps his wings.

            Steve hits Bucky’s shoulder hard. “All right! All right, I’ll dance with you. Asshole,” he grumbles. “Not my fault when I step on your feet.”

            “I ain’t worried about that.” Bucky grabs both of Steve’s hands and places them where they need to be, one on Bucky’s shoulder and one on Bucky’s waist. The music’s starting up, that familiar big band sound. Doing the Charleston is second nature to Bucky. After a couple seconds, Steve gets into the swing of it too.

            The thing is, Steve’s not a bad dancer once he loosens up a little. In fact, he’s pretty good, despite the occasionally asthmatic wheeze. His skin’s permanently a pretty rose color now. Bucky takes a chance and swings Steve up into the air just to hear him laugh.

            “So what are you going to do now that you’ve graduated?” Steve yells over the music.

            “I don’t know,” Bucky calls back, putting his hands on his knees. Steve dances around him just as pretty as could be. Bucky thinks he could do anything right now. “Might go work at the docks with Gene.”

            “No college?”

            “Nah, I’m not a college man.” Bucky takes Steve’s hands again and twirls him around. “What about you? You kinda disappeared after school.”

            “I’m a nurse. Like my ma. Went to the same classes as her and everything.”

            Gene comes by and taps the couple next to Bucky and Steve. That couple, two big bears of guys too drunk to stay upright, groans and lurches away. “Thought nursing was just for girls,” Bucky says.

             “We do just about everything the doctors do. And medical school’s too expensive.” Steve’s forehead furrows. His steps stutter. “Say, is the floor moving?”

            “Oh, shit,” Bucky says.

            The floor jerks again, and suddenly they’re both tumbling into the swimming pool the bar keeps hidden beneath its floor. Gene must have hit the goddamn button, Bucky thinks. The deliciously cool water hits Bucky’s overheated skin. He breaks the surface laughing. Steve does the same. “What the hell,” he says, soaked through and looking pleased as punch. Bucky splashes him. Steve yelps and splashes back. Around them, the other dancers start jumping in.

\----

            The water feels good as long as they’re in it, but by the time they start walking back to Brooklyn, Steve’s shivering. The moon’s out, full and bright. Even with his teeth chattering, Steve starts to sing: “Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight, come out tonight.”

            “Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight,” Bucky sings in the best harmony he can come up with, “and dance by the light of the moon?”

            “You’re drunk,” Steve says.

            Bucky raises his eyebrows. “Ain’t you?”

            “Yeah,” Steve sighs. “But being cold sobers you up pretty fast.”

            “Sorry about that,” Bucky says, grimacing. “Don’t want you getting sick. I’d offer you my coat, but, well.” He lifts an arm, and water drips from it. “Hey, at least we won free drinks.”

            “Isn’t this your building?” Steve asks.

            “Huh?” Bucky says. “Oh.” Sure enough, they’re already at his apartment. But he doesn’t want to leave Steve. Not yet. Not when he’s rosy-cheeked and gorgeous and damn near leaning his head on his shoulder. “Why don’t you come inside and warm up?”

            “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Steve says quickly.

            “Like you haven’t been in there before,” Bucky says. Truth be told, Steve hasn’t been over in a couple years, not since he was in school, but their moms are close. It wouldn’t be that out of the ordinary. And even if it was, Ma would turn a blind eye. “At least run a towel over your head, Rogers, Jesus, I still have nightmares about you jumping off that dock.”

            “It’s not a big deal,” Steve grumbles. Bucky rolls his eyes, grabs his arm, and drags him up to the apartment.

            The light’s still on in Ma’s room when Bucky and Steve get inside the apartment. Bucky toes off his shoes and ducks into the kitchen to grab a towel. Steve hovers by the door. Bucky can’t stand the way he looks, half-drowned and bright-eyed and way too skinny. He wants to wrap him in every single towel in the house and cook him a three-course meal. And then screw him into the mattress, but only once he’s warm and dry. He pulls the towel over Steve’s head and tousles his hair until Steve slaps his hands away. “Get off me.”

            “Fine, fine.” Bucky backs up. Steve flings the towel away. With his hair fluffed up, he really does look like a pissed-off cat. Bucky bursts out laughing.

            “Oh my God,” Steve grouses. “Would you shut up?”

             The floorboards creak in Ma’s room. “Who’s in there with you, James?”

             Bucky sighs. “It’s Steve Rogers, ma.”

             “Steve Rogers? What does he want?”

              “I don't know!” Bucky raises his eyebrows at Steve. “What do you want?”

              A red flush creeps up Steve’s neck and over his cheeks. “Me? Nothing! I just came in to get warm.”

              Bucky leans against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “He's making violent love to me, ma!”

            Steve scowls. “Bucky,” he hisses.

            “What, baby?” Bucky croons. “Ain’t that what you want?”

            “You goddamn jerk,” Steve says. His hands are balled into fists, knuckles white. Bucky idly wonders if Steve’d smack him around if he asked nicely. “We’ll get caught.”

            “Ma’s not gonna turn me in. She’s known about me’n’you for years.”

            Steve’s hands uncurl. His brow furrows. “What do you mean, ‘me and you’?”

            “Us. You know, how I feel about you.” Bucky does his best to keep his voice casual. It’s not so hard when he’s this drunk.

            Steve’s chest rises and falls. He’s beautiful, flushed like this. He might slug Bucky if Bucky said that, but it’s true. “Explain.” And he’s beautiful like that too: giving orders like some kind of captain.

            Bucky wets his lips. Now the nerves are sneaking in through the haze of alcohol. “You remember that day when we were kids and we found the telegram at Mr. Gower’s?”

            Steve nods, face gone serious. “Course I do.”

            Bucky inhales. Exhales. “Well, you bent down behind the counter to do something, and I leaned over your bad ear, and I said—”

            The phone rings shrilly. Bucky about jumps out of his skin. So does Steve. With his hair fluffed up, he looks like a startled cat. Bucky stumbles over laughter. “Get that, Ma, will ya,” he calls.

            “Honestly, James, for once in your life—Hello?”

            Steve shakes his head hard. “Well?” he demands.

            Bucky’s heart is really jackrabbiting now. He’d lie, but he’s already Charlestoned with Steve tonight. Nothing he can do should surprise him after that. He leans over Steve, just like he did all those years ago, but this time he whispers in Steve’s good ear. He can feel Steve’s breath come faster in hot puffs against his cheek.

            Bucky swallows but doesn’t pull back. “Well,” he adds awkwardly to the end of his declaration. “Now you know.”

            Sweaty hands catch him by the back of his neck. Then Steve’s mouth is on his. Too hard, too hot, and too tight—and Bucky’s heart is flying. He grabs Steve’s lapels, ready to spin him around and press him up against the wall, fuck that they’re in the front hall still. But then Ma’s calling both of their names.

            “Howard’s on the phone,” she says.

            “Tell him I ain’t buying stock from him,” Bucky says impatiently. Steve rolls his eyes. “No matter how good his company is.”

            “No, James, it’s not about that.” Ma bustles into the room, dragging the phone with her, cord and all. It tugs her back like a leash just short of Steve. Steve backs up a little, but not enough to hide what they’ve been doing. Bucky blinks at how pale his ma is. “Steve—” She holds out the phone to him. Steve stares at her, not taking it. She shakes it a little. “Steven, it’s about your mother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More tomorrow.


	5. 4. tis love and love alone i've waited for, 1935-36

            “Sorry I didn’t stand next to you.”

            “It’s okay,” Steve says shortly. His coat is too big for him, Bucky notices as he follows him up the rickety stairs to Mrs. Rogers’ old apartment. Now it’s just Steve’s. “You helped carry the casket.”

            Bucky tried to help, anyway. Steve, up at the head of it, wouldn’t let the rest of them take any of the weight. Damn stubborn idiot. And now, even though he’s been in and out of Bucky’s bed for half a year, he’s been a stubborn idiot again and trying to hole up by himself in that rat trap of an apartment. “Stevie—”

            “I know what you’re going to ask,” Steve says impatiently as he reaches the apartment door. He digs around in his coat pockets.

            “I’ll call Howard. And Pegs, she’s home for Christmas. We’ll put the couch cushions on the floor like we’re kids. It’ll be fun,” Bucky pushes, hoping his voice doesn’t crack. Even in profile, Steve’s face is tense and miserable. “I’ll shine your shoes,” Bucky says. He knows Steve likes that. Usually the color’d come high in his cheeks, he’d say something about Bucky’s dirty mouth.

            Now he just shakes his head. “I can’t ask you for that. I’ve been in and outta your place for six months. I’ve been a burden on your family long enough.”

            “You’re not a burden, Jesus, Rogers.” Bucky kicks aside the brick Steve hides the spare key under and hands the key to him.

Steve’s shoulders slump when he takes it. “I can do this by myself,” he says quietly.

            Bucky shakes his head. He cannot believe how thick Steve is sometimes, thinking he’s not important when Bucky loves him more than anybody else in the goddamn world. He reaches out and squeezes Steve’s shoulder. “Thing is, you don’t have to. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal.”  

            Steve ducks his head. The color’s in his cheeks now, not from embarrassment but from tears. “Stay the night with me?” he asks in a low voice.

            Bucky grips Steve’s bony shoulder just a little tighter. “As many nights as you want.”

\---

            One night turns to two, to ten, to a month. Bucky moves all his clothes over to Steve’s place. Then his radio. Then all of his books and magazines.

            “Are you leaving for good this time?” Ma asks as Bucky rattles through the cabinets to find the cast-iron skillet his Grandma Jane left him.

            “You want me to?” Bucky asks absentmindedly. He’d be more worried about Ma’s answer, but he’s trying not to drop a casserole dish on his head, and he’s got to run home and make Sunday dinner soon.

            “You’re living in sin,” Ma says, her voice edging up toward hysteria.

            The casserole dishes rattle ominously. Bucky holds them back with one hand and then slams the cabinet doors shut. “All right,” he says louder than he intends. “And? You knew this was coming when I was ten years old.”

            “I don’t want you to go to Hell!”

            “I’d be in Hell if I wasn’t with him,” Bucky snaps. He tears open another cabinet. There it is!—he drags out the skillet and lets all the other pans fall. They bang to the floor and roll haphazardly across the kitchen. The sound’s muffled beneath the roaring in Bucky’s ears. “You think what you want, Ma, but he’s mine and I’m his just as sure as you and Dad ever were.” He walks past her, but something—maybe the stress of the past year all built up, maybe the burning love that always fills his chest when he thinks about Steve—possesses him and makes him storm back to her. “He’s a better man than I’ll ever be. Than anyone will. You’ll damn well respect him, or I won’t come around here anymore.”

            Ma flinches backward. Vaguely, Bucky realizes he’s been gesturing with the skillet. He lowers it slowly, like he’s in a dream. “Now I’m going home to my—”

            Bucky swallows. He turns and leaves, slamming the door behind him. All the way back to Steve’s apartment, he focuses on the pounding of his heart and not what special, wonderful, never-gonna-happen word he wanted to use for Steve.

\--

             Steve lost his job at the hospital when he missed shifts while his ma was bedridden, there at the end. He’s back at Mr. Gower’s now—but he’s not just running errands and scooping ice cream. More and more, as Mr. Gower’s eyes grow cataracts and hands start trembling, Steve comes home from work even later than Bucky does. He measures powder into capsules, mixes liquid medication in bottles, and even administers inoculations. On the rare lunch breaks when Bucky walks from the docks to visit, Mr. Gower is the one scooping ice cream.

             “Steve’s grown into a fine young man, hasn’t he?” he says as he passes Bucky a coconut-free scoop of chocolate.

              Bucky smirks. “You should tell him that. He’ll turn so red his face’ll never look the same again.”

               “I heard that,” Steve calls from the back. He’s finishing up an order of aspirin tablets before he comes out front to eat. Bucky laughs around a mouthful of sweet ice cream.

            Mr. Gower leans across the counter, something bright and merry in his gaze. “Do you want to know a secret, Mr. Barnes?”

            “Sure thing, Mr. Gower.”

            Mr. Gower drops his voice to a whisper. “I’m thinking of passing the lease to Steve when I retire.”

            Bucky raises his eyebrows. “Really?”

            “Well, I’d like to know that the pharmacy is run by someone responsible. But don’t say anything to him,” Mr. Gower says quickly. “I’m not ready to leave yet. I’d like it to be a surprise.”

           “Oh, he’ll be surprised, all right,” Bucky says. He can’t help grinning like a fool when Steve finally comes and sits down for lunch. Steve gives him a funny look, but Bucky keeps smiling. Steve does that to him.

\--

            Winter turns to spring, spring to summer. Work on the docks is hot and miserable. Gene makes lifting those boxes feel a little lighter—he works beside Bucky on the line, and his thinly veiled comments about the other dockboys’ asses are everything Bucky ever wanted out of this rotten job. Gene laughs at Bucky a lot, calls him Stevie’s housewife, but Bucky just knocks elbows with him and shrugs it off. Gene’s not the kind of guy who’ll ever want to settle down with anyone, woman or man. Truth be told, a year ago Bucky wouldn’t have thought he’d be ready to settle down, either, but a little over a year ago he wasn’t with Steve yet. If Steve could make an honest man out of him, Bucky would beg him for it.

            It’s coming on July of 1936, almost Steve’s 21st birthday, when Bucky comes home all sunburned to find Steve sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a bottle of gin. Bucky frowns; they were saving that booze for Steve’s birthday. But doesn’t say anything straightaway. He’s learned that asking pointed questions right as soon as he sees Steve just gets Steve riled up and ready to fight. Bucky loves how tough he is, but he’s too tired and itchy to fight. He washes his hands at the sink, wincing when he finds parts of his skin that are already peeling. “Did Satan just get elected Mayor?” he asks idly. “It’s hot as Hell out there.”

            “Mr. Gower’s retiring,” Steve says tersely. “He wants me to run the pharmacy for him.”

            Bucky dries his sore hands carefully. He takes his time with it, trying to choose his words carefully. “Thought you were already doing that.”

            “No, I mean he wants me to run the whole thing. He’s going to sign the lease over to me.”

            Bucky turns now. He can’t put it off any longer. Steve’s just as hunched over as he expected, all his thin cords of muscle drawn tight. Bucky stares at the sharp edge of his jaw. “Don’t you want that?”

            “Don’t talk to me like I’m being ungrateful,” Steve snaps.

            Bucky scowls. “That’s not what I’m doing, Rogers, calm down.”

            “Sure sounds like it. He’s being real good to me, isn’t he, giving charity to that wisp of a guy who can’t lift more than twenty pounds without having an asthma attack. Ain’t he nice,” Steve spits. He shoves the bottle of gin across the kitchen table and stumbles to his feet. Bucky instinctively takes a couple steps forward, arms out, ready to steady him, but Steve’s venomous look stops him in his tracks. “I don’t need your help,” Steve snarls. “I don’t need pity.”

            “That isn’t what this is!” Bucky snaps. “Isn’t what he’s giving you, either. Do you know what he told me? You’re the only man responsible enough to run the place.”

“Well, maybe I’m tired of being responsible!” Steve’s voice rises with every word.” I don’t want to be stuck here forever. I want to do what I want to do. I want to go to Tahiti and Hawaii, and I want to join the Army like my da did, and I don’t want to deal with anyone else dying.”

            All the breath goes out of Bucky like he’s been socked in the stomach. “Stevie.”

            Steve blinks hard. His Adam’s apple bobs every time he swallows. Bucky steps forward, slowly, hands up and ready to surrender. He’ll let Steve hit him if that’s what Steve needs. But Steve pitches forward instead, burying his face in the front of Bucky’s shirt as soon as he’s close enough to touch. His whole body shakes with every sob. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and holds on for dear life. He hopes it’s enough.

            Steve shifts his head after a minute so his mouth is clear of the fabric of Bucky’s shirt. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice scratchy.

            “S’alright,” Bucky says softly around the lump in his throat. “You’re hurting.”

            Steve’s spindly arms tighten around Bucky’s waist. “I love you,” he says.

            Bucky’s chest seizes up. It’s the first time Steve’s said it outside of bed, outside of the dead of night. “Oh, darlin’,” he says. He showers kisses on Steve’s forehead and eyelids and cheeks. He can feel the heat rolling off of Steve’s red face.

            “Stay with me?” Steve asks hoarsely. “I can do it. I—I think I want to do it, honestly. I’m just afraid I won’t be as good alone.”

            Bucky’s heart squeezes tight. “Of course I will.” He didn’t know that he ever had any other option.

\---

            The first few weeks that Steve owns the pharmacy are rocky—he gets a nasty infection and has to close up shop for a couple days, and sales take a hit. But somebody tucks a hundred dollar bill under the apartment door while Steve’s recovering, and that’s more than enough to patch things over with the customers.

             Steve hits Howard in his smug face the next time he sees him. Bucky laughs when Howard curses and ducks his head, blood streaming from his nose. “See if I ever help you again,” he grouses. But they all know he’s bluffing. They have a good few glasses of champagne in his honor—his big plastics factory is expanding to London, and smart-mouthed Howard’s well on his way to being a millionaire.

           By September, Steve’s found his footing. It helps that he realizes that, as he tells Bucky wonderingly one night, “I don’t have to do anything different than what I’ve been doing!” Once he’s come to terms with not having to magically turn into Mr. Gower himself, Steve makes a damn good replacement. More and more of the neighborhood mothers bring their little ones to him for inoculations, especially once he starts ordering regular shipments of the diphtheria vaccine. Steve’s a careful listener, and gentle, too, when it counts. He also has a tendency to waive payments if he knows the family doesn’t have the money. Steve and Bucky don’t have the money, either, but Bucky knows better than to talk Steve out of doing the right thing.  

            Of course, sometimes the right thing makes Bucky a little nervous. Like the time he comes to the pharmacy to visit over lunch and finds some skinny guy sleeping behind the ice cream counter. He’s using the nastiest-looking coat as a pillow and snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Bucky hops the counter and nudges him with his foot. “Hey,” he says. “Hey! Wake up! Yeah, you. Who are you?” The guy blinks at him, dark eyes not registering anything yet. “Can you hear me?” Bucky demands. The guy keeps goggling at him. Bucky groans. “Do you speak English?”

            “I’m from Fresno, Ace,” the guy says in perfect English. “Who the hell are you?”

            “Leave him alone, Buck,” Steve calls from the back. “I told him he could sleep there.”

            “You’re gonna scare off the customers,” Bucky says incredulously.

            “It’s just until I clear a space in back,” Steve replies. He pokes his head through the doorway. His hair’s all fluffed up the way it gets when he’s frazzled. Bucky smiles a little despite his confusion. “James Morita, meet James Barnes.”

            “Jim,” Morita says, just as Bucky says, “Bucky, God, Rogers, when was the last time anybody called me James?”

            Steve shrugs. “Thought you might get along better once you realized you have something in common. Come on back, Jim, I got your room set up.”

            Bucky reaches a hand down to Jim. He eyes Bucky suspiciously before he takes his hand and lets him haul him to his feet. The guy reeks. Definitely a hobo, Bucky thinks. Great. Just what they need.

            Steve grabs him by his collar and hauls him aside as Jim gets set up in back. “Don’t say a goddamn word,” he hisses.

            “I didn’t,” Bucky says.

            “Jim’s a good guy.”

            “I’m sure he is.”

            “He’s been hopping trains, down on his luck. He’s willing to work for food and shelter.”

            “Well, good for him.”

            “I could use a runner, Buck. Mr. Gower had me. It’s hard, trying to do everything by myself.”

            “Then get one of the kids that’s always coming around,” Bucky says impatiently. “Not some guy who’ll rob you the first chance he gets. You’re already short on cash. You gotta stop being a doormat, Stevie. People take advantage of you.”

            Steve’s jaw tightens so quickly that it pops. Bucky finds himself shoved against the wall hard enough that his spine hurts. “I’ll run this place how I see fit,” Steve says in a low, furious voice. “And you’ll keep your mouth shut. Do you understand?”

            Bucky’s mouth goes dry. “Yes, sir,” he drawls. Steve tugs on his lapels even harder, nose flaring. For a second, Bucky’s sure he’ll hit him.

            Steve lets him go instead. “Go eat your lunch,” he says tiredly, like all the fight’s drained out of him. “I’ll see you at home.”

            Bucky turns on his heel and walks all the way back to the docks with his heart pounding in his throat. He goes through two cigarettes before he realizes he left his lunchbag at the pharmacy. The bell rings. Bucky curses and lights another cigarette, letting it dangle from his mouth as he gets back to work.

            Gene eyes him appraisingly. “Spat with the wife?”

            “Fuck off,” Bucky snarls. Gene keeps his mouth shut after that.

            By the time Bucky clocks out, his anger’s been replaced by shame. What else would he expect from Steve but a big heart? That’s why he fell for him in the first place. That’s what makes him so good. Nobody’s got money right now. At least they have a roof over their heads. It’s just that Bucky’s so damn scared of losing that. Of losing Steve. What’ll they do if he gets sick like his ma? Nobody else in Brooklyn dispenses medicine for free.

            Bucky comes through the door already apologizing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you, I’m sorry—” He grabs Steve by the hips and drags him away from the stove. Steve squeaks and grabs Bucky’s shoulders to steady himself. Bucky kisses every inch of him he can reach, nose, ears, forehead, mouth. His heart’s fluttering in his throat. “I trust you, Stevie, I promise, I just worry, wanna make things good for you, God I love you—Why are you making dinner?” he asks suddenly, the strangeness of it catching up to him. “That’s my job.”

            Behind him, someone clears their throat. Bucky goes cold. He turns slowly to see Jim Morita sitting at the kitchen table, eyebrows near his hairline. Bucky can’t breathe. Shit, shit, he just—in front of—he’ll get them arrested, he’ll get Steve arrested and it’ll be Bucky’s fault—

            “Glad you two made up,” Jim says wryly. “I’d be pretty ashamed of myself if I thought I’d ruined something good.”

            Bucky squints at him. “Uh,” he says. Beside him, Steve’s breath comes out as a whistle.

            “Is the stew done?” Jim asks hopefully. “I’m hungry.”

\---

            Jim Morita’s been sleeping in the back room of the pharmacy for three weeks when someone bangs on the apartment door in the middle of the night. Steve groans against Bucky’s chest. Bucky sighs. “I’ll get it.” He hopes it’s just some drunkard thinking he’s knocking on his sweetheart’s door. He doesn’t know who else it could be.

            So when he opens the door and finds Mr. Martini from downstairs clutching a sobbing, blanket-wrapped child to his chest, Bucky spends way too long staring at him incredulously. It’s only when Mr. Martini says, “Oh, please help,” that Bucky yells, “Stevie! We got a problem.”

            Steve stumbles out of the bedroom, still shirtless, hair all rumpled. His sleepy gaze sharpens when he sees Mr. Martini. “What happened?”  

           “Maria,” Mr. Martini says. The child against his chest sobs. “She fell out of bed. Her leg, I think it’s broken.”

            “Put her on the couch,” Steve instructs. “Gently. Try not to jostle that leg too much.”

            Mr. Martini’s as gentle as he can be, Bucky can tell, but the little girl still shrieks. The blanket falls away from her leg, and Bucky gags a little. White bone pokes through her skin. Steve closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes again, he uses his deep captain’s voice. “Bucky, call the pharmacy and wake up Jim. Tell him it’s an emergency and that I need him to bring a child-sized splint and the strongest pain capsules we have to the apartment. Then boil some water and sterilize the smallest needle you have.”

            Bucky moves as soon as Steve’s finished his orders. Adrenaline wakes him up better than any joe ever has. Jim takes a few phone calls to answer, but once Bucky tells him what Steve needs, he sounds wide awake, too. He gets to the apartment in minutes. Bucky’s boiling water and sterilizing all his needles, just in case, when he gets there. In the other room, Steve talks over Maria’s cries in a low, soothing voice.

            Bucky stays in the kitchen while Steve resets Maria’s leg. Jim joins him after a minute. He grabs the half-empty bottle of gin off the counter and takes a swig. Bucky reaches out a hand for it and does the same.

            “Reminds me of my sister,” Bucky says after a minute.

            Jim nods. “Reminds me of my daughter.”

            Bucky stares at him, wondering if he heard right. Jim doesn’t say anything else, just drinks another mouthful of booze. Maria quiets.

            “You can come back in,” Steve calls softly.

            “Do I really want to?” Jim mutters. He does, though. Bucky figures he has no choice but to follow him. He takes the bottle of gin with him. He figures Mr. Martini might want a taste.

             Maria’s fast asleep on Mr. Martini’s lap when they go into the living room. Her leg’s splinted just as nicely as Bucky’s ever seen a splint done. Mr. Martini takes the bottle gratefully and drinks. “Grazie,” he says. “Grazie, grazie, grazie, Dr. Rogers.”

            “Oh, no, I’m not a doctor,” Steve says quickly.

            “You fixed her leg. That makes a doctor to me.” Mr. Martini kisses Maria’s dark hair. “I don’t have the money now, but if you give me a week or two—”

            “No.”

            Mr. Martini’s eyes widen. “No?” he asks nervously.

            Steve shakes his head. “You don’t owe me anything,” he says gently. Bucky blinks hard. His chest fills with something he doesn’t have words for. “I’m just glad I could help,” Steve continues. “Now, you shouldn’t move her yet. You can both sleep on the couch. She should be well enough to go back downstairs in the morning. I’ll send you with some aspirin, and I’ll check the splint whenever you need me to so we can be sure her leg’s healing straight.”

            “Oh, Dr. Rogers,” Mr. Martini breathes.

            Even in the dark, Bucky can tell that Steve’s cheeks are pink.

\---

            “I fixed two broken arms, a twisted ankle, a bloody nose, and diaper rash today,” Steve says when he gets home that night. “There was practically a line out the door. People waiting for me, Buck. Calling me ‘Dr. Rogers.’”

            “Yeah?” Bucky says, drying the dishes. “Mr. Martini must have told them about how you splinted Maria’s leg. For free. Did you charge these guys?”

            Steve ducks his head. His dark lashes sweep across his red cheeks. “It’s not a big deal.”

            “Course it’s a big deal. Nobody has money. You know that. I’m surprised nobody’s petitioning for your sainthood.”

            “Bucky,” Steve says exasperatedly.

            “You’d deserve it.” Bucky sets the dishes on the counter and rests his hands on Steve’s hips.

            Steve shakes his head. “I’m just doing the right thing.”

            “Well, doing the right thing’s pretty uncommon,” Bucky says softly. He rubs his thumbs in circles on Steve’s hipbones. Steve’s breath hitches. “And you’re uncommonly pretty, baby doll.”

            Steve swallows. He’s already pressing into Bucky’s touch. “Is the stove off?”

            “Way ahead of you,” Bucky murmurs. He ducks his head and presses his mouth against Steve’s gloriously soft lips.

            They’re quiet, always quiet, but Bucky can tell by the way Steve’s mouth drops open when he would moan, when he would scream. Making love always wears him out, but he’s so goddamn gorgeous that Bucky can’t feel too bad for the way his chest heaves afterward. Steve’s boneless in his arms, doe-eyed and sweet and red all over. Bucky wishes they could stay like this forever.

           “You're wonderful...wonderful,” Steve murmurs against Bucky’s sweaty cheek.  

            Bucky huffs out a laugh. “All right, ya sap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter coming tonight!


	6. 5. sunny to me when your eyes look into mine, 1936-40

           “The Health Department’s trying to shut us down again,” Steve seethes. The apartment door rattles behind him when he slams it shut.

            Bucky, who’s elbow-deep in soapy water, trying to get rid of all the grime picked up in a day’s work at the docks, winces. “Did you tell them to fuck off?”

           “’Course I did. And I’ll keep doing it until they show me the law that says I can’t provide physical examinations for free. But they can’t because it doesn’t exist.” Steve drops his heavy black bag onto the kitchen table and leans against the counter by Bucky. His spindly chest heaves. Color’s high in his cheeks. “They’re just pissed because I’m taking business away from the doctors. Well, good! Nobody deserves to die because they don’t have the money to pay off those overpriced creeps. The inspector kept trying to say I didn’t know what I’m doing. Bullshit I don’t know what I’m doing! Nurses do every damn thing a doctor—”

           Bucky grabs the front of Steve’s shirt with one soapy hand and drags him in for a kiss. Steve’s arms flail for a second before he smacks Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky lets him go and ducks his next punch. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, flicking the suds into the sink. Steve looks murderous. “It ain’t that I’m not listening,” Bucky says quickly. “Just breathe every once in a while, doll. I hear you. You’re doing the right thing.”

           Steve breathes hard, staring Bucky down. Then his shoulders slump. “It just hurts, Buck. This girl came in this morning—she’s sixteen, her baby’s due any day now, and you can tell she hasn’t been eating right. No family, no work now that she’s this far along—how’s she supposed to pay for a midwife, or a doctor if something goes wrong? If we didn’t have the clinic open—”

            “Then you could deliver babies right here in our kitchen.” Bucky wipes his hands on a dishtowel and wraps his arms around Steve. Steve’s trembling finely, muscles shaking like they always do once the righteous anger starts wearing off. “Sew people up on our couch, run an influenza ward outta our bedroom for all I care. Jesus, Rogers, you’re so good.”

            “I just want to do what’s right,” Steve mumbles against Bucky’s chest. Bucky presses kiss after kiss to his fine blond hair and squeezes him tight.

\---

            Sometime after midnight, when Bucky and Steve are asleep, legs tangled together beneath the sheets, knocking jolts them awake. Bucky stumbles to the door and drags it open. Jim Morita’s standing there, looking just as tired as Bucky feels. A pale blonde girl’s half-hidden behind Jim. Even beneath her ragged coat, Bucky can see the swell of her stomach.

            “Steve,” Bucky calls. “Stevie, get your bag. C’min, ma’am,” he says, belatedly realizing that he should get the hell out of the way and let Jim and the girl inside. Jim starts guiding her to the couch, but Bucky catches her by the arm and leads her back to the bedroom. He can feel her shaking and sweating through her coat.

            They meet Steve in the doorway to the bedroom. He takes one look at the girl and goes straight to the kitchen for his supplies. “Get her settled on the bed,” he calls over his shoulder. “She’s in for a long night.”

            Steve puts Jim and Bucky to work for a while, boiling water, sterilizing supplies, and running to the pharmacy for medicine. After an hour, though, the process seems to slow. Bucky makes it through two wrenching screams before he goes through the kitchen window and onto the fire escape for a smoke. Jim follows him and takes a cigarette without even asking. Bucky smokes his right down to the butt and then puts it out beneath his shoe. The sky’s velvety dark, but the sun will creep up soon.

            “My ma used to help Stevie’s ma deliver babies,” Bucky says.

            “Yeah?” Jim says. “What was it like?”

            Bucky shrugs. “They kept us out. Didn’t want kids underfoot. But I always saw the aftermath. A lotta blood. This the girl he was so worried about?”

            Jim nods. “One of ‘em.”

            Even outside, Bucky can hear the echo of a moan. He shakes out another cigarette and lights it.

\---

            The girl’s still crying in the bedroom when Bucky leaves for work. He spends all morning flubbing, dropping boxes and screwing up chains. Gene covers for him, good friend that he is. Bucky wants to run home at lunch, but what’s the point? He can’t do anything to help. Even if he could, he’s too damn nervous to be useful now. He smokes a cigarette and prays his first rosary in years: _Hail Mary, full of Grace, you know what it’s like to have a baby, please don’t let that girl die. Holy Mary, Mother of God, I know we’re all sinners but make your Son watch out for that baby._ Lunch settles him, or at least his stomach, and by late afternoon, he’s on top of his work again. But clocking out puts his stomach right back in his throat. He doesn’t run home, but it’s a close thing.

            The stairwell leading up to the apartment is silent. Bucky forces himself to breathe evenly. Still no sound when he gets to the landing. Still no sound in the hall. Then, as he’s fumbling his key out of his pocket—the tiniest mewl, like a kitten. Bucky drops the key on the floor. He nearly bangs his head on the doorknob straightening up.

            He drops his coat on the floor, leaves the door open, and goes straight back to the bedroom. He stops short when he realizes the girl isn’t there. The sheets are fresh. The whole place is pristine.

            “Bucky?” Steve calls softly.

            Bucky follows his voice into the kitchen. Steve’s sitting at the table with a red-faced bundle in the crook of his arm. Bucky chokes a little. “What happened?” he croaks.

            “She’s fine, no, no, she’s okay. Baby came around ten. She left with Jim.”

            Bucky frowns. “But.” He gestures to the baby. “Uh. She left something pretty important, didn’t she?”

            Steve’s eyes dart around for a second. When he makes eye contact with Bucky, his gaze is steely. “He’s ours.”

            “What?”

            “She didn’t want him, but she doesn’t want him in an orphanage, so she gave him to us. She wouldn’t have any money to feed him. And you know how those orphanages are, he wouldn’t be looked after or loved. I get formula and diapers in at the pharmacy anyway, I’ll just take some from the stock, and your ma probably has old baby clothes—”

            “Whoa, whoa. Slow down, just give me a—”

            Steve’s scowl deepens. “You don’t have to be bothered. I can leave with him. I’ll go stay at the pharmacy,” he says, and Bucky’s whole body goes numb.

            “No,” he says, so sharply that Steve flinches. The baby whines, a high, thin sound that curls itself around Bucky’s chest and squeezes tight. “You ain’t going anywhere. You can’t sleep at a pharmacy with a baby, are you crazy? That place leaks heat worse than this apartment does. And what about when he starts crawling? You carry rat poison, for God’s sake. You telling me you’re gonna let our kid get into rat poison?”

            “Our kid?” Steve echoes. The fight’s still in him, but he’s surprised, so his eyes are narrowed suspiciously.

            Laughter bubbles out of Bucky’s too-tight chest. None of this is funny. “You’re batshit, Rogers.” Steve’s scowl returns full-force. Bucky shakes his head. He goes over to the table slowly, willing himself to stop shaking. He sits down in the chair next to Steve’s and holds out his arms. “Let me see him.”

            The baby squirms when Steve hands him over. He’s so red in the face that he looks like he’s already been sunburned, and his head’s squished. Bucky does his best not to consider why. When he tucks the baby close to his chest, though, the kid settles, mouth parting in a tiny sigh. Bucky jiggles him a little, hoping that it’ll keep him calm. Then he stops abruptly: he’s noticed the baby’s shock of white-blond hair. Just like his mother’s hair. And just like Stevie’s when they were kids.

            “Jesus, Rogers, lookit him,” Bucky breathes.

            “Watch your mouth in front of the baby,” Steve says. Bucky’s too fascinated with the tiny upturned nose to laugh. “Do you really want him?” Steve’s voice is quiet now, nervous. Bucky nods quickly. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. The baby’s so small, this warm weight against his heart. Bucky doesn’t understand how they’ll make this work, not without getting arrested or losing the kid and getting their hearts broken—but he doesn’t give a good goddamn. Not right now. Not in this drafty kitchen with the man he loves and this little kid who’s already tugging at his heart.

\---

            Between the four of them, Steve, Bucky, Jim, and the mother come up with a plan. Jim’s listed as the baby’s father on the birth certificate. Bucky laughs a little at that one—“Whitest Jim Morita Jr. I ever did see”—but it works with the rest of the plan: Jim doesn’t have money, everyone knows that. Just like they know that Steve provides a home and work for him. So how surprising would it really be if Jim, finding himself with an unwanted case of fatherhood, would adopt that little baby out to the one man he trusts? And Steve, being the good gracious doctor that he is, would of course adopt that sweet child, but being worried about his own fragile health, he would appoint a godfather immediately. Bucky.

            They name the baby Peter, after the apostle who always stuck his foot in his mouth, and James, after Bucky and Jim both. Bucky fought for Steven Jr., but Steve cringed every time he said that. Bucky didn’t think Daddy grimacing at Junior’s name would help the kid’s self-esteem.

            Steve is always, always Daddy. Outside the apartment, Bucky’s just Bucky, but when he comes home all covered in grease, little Petey comes crawling, chirping, “Pa! Pa!”

            So there they are, Dad and Pa, in an apartment filled with bottles by the radio and diapers above the rubbers. They go out to the bars less and read nursery rhymes more. Bucky’s ma starts coming around—in both senses; at first, she only comes in the apartment because the baby’s there, but by Pete’s first birthday, she and Steve are trading rum cake recipes.

            Two years after they get Pete, Steve comes home from work with a baby the size of the loaf of bread. Doesn’t even ask—just comes to the couch and drops the baby in Bucky’s arms. Bucky’s holding Pete on his lap already. He instinctively clutches the baby close, heart stuttering. Pete’s little arms come around the bundle, too. “Baby?” he asks.

            “Steve?” Bucky echoes.

            “Pete’s mom dropped her off this morning,” Steve says. His voice is deep and clear, the way it is when he’s telling patients what to do. When Bucky looks up at him, his jaw’s squared off like it gets when he’s gearing up for a fight. “She doesn’t want her in the orphanage, either.”

            “Well, good thing she’s not going there, huh?” Bucky says softly. He looks down at the squish-faced little girl. Pete’s staring down at her, too, in wide-eyed wonder. “Hey, Pete. Whatcha think of your little sister?”

            “I keep?” Pete asks. He’s such a wiggly kid usually, but right now, with the baby on his lap, he’s holding so still.

            “We’re all keeping her,” Steve says. Pete presses a noisy kiss to the baby’s cheek.

            They name her Janey, after Bucky’s firecracker of a grandma. As soon as she can crawl, she and Pete are thick as thieves. When, in the winter of 1940, someone abandons a set of twins on the pharmacy’s doorstep, no one is more excited than four-year-old Pete and two-year-old Janey. “My babies,” Janey insists.

            Bucky’s stomach knots up. They’re already cramped in the one-bedroom apartment, not to mention hard-pressed for money. But he knows they’ll keep the kids, knew it as soon as Steve called about the two babies he found turning blue in the cold. So he doesn’t fret: He just bends over and whispers two names in Janey’s ear.

            “Joey and Sarah?” she repeats in her clear, loud voice. The startled, awed expression on Steve’s face is worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More chapters up tomorrow!


	7. 6. won't you tell me where my love can be? the war years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The slur "Jap" is used a couple times in this chapter.

           The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor on the twins’ first birthday. Work in the city grinds to a halt; the foreman at the docks sends them all away out of fear that the Japanese will bomb there, too. Bucky drags Gene into a one-armed hug before he runs to the pharmacy. He’s got a feeling that Steve’s raring to do something stupid.

            Pete would ordinarily be at school right now, but he’s sitting on the ice cream counter with Janey. Both of them are swinging their legs. Nobody else is in the front of the store. Janey’s eyes light up when she sees Bucky. Bucky shakes his head, trying to stem the word he knows is about to tumble out of her mouth. Pete must notice it too. “Bucky,” he says loudly, elbowing Janey in the ribs. Janey shoves him, scowling. Pete jumps off the counter and runs to Bucky. Bucky sweeps him off his feet.

            Now that he’s in school, Pete’s all about being a big boy. Too big for his britches, Bucky often thinks, way too much like Steve with all his bravado. But he’s only five. He wraps his skinny arms tight around Bucky’s shoulders and clings. “Papa,” he whispers in Bucky’s ear. “Are the Japs gonna come get us here?”   

            “No,” Bucky says. Pete makes a disgruntled sound, like he knows Bucky’s lying, but like hell will Bucky sit down and have this conversation with his kid right now. “And don’t let Uncle Jim hear you calling anybody a Jap. Okay?”

            “Daddy already said that,” Pete mumbles. “Papa, I’m scared.”

            Bucky swallows. “I got you,” he says. It’s the best he has to offer. “Where is your dad?”

            “Out. Uncle Jim’s watching us. He let us have three scoops of ice cream. Even the babies got some.” Pete squirms. Bucky sets him down reluctantly.

             Janey’s standing up on the counter now, walking back and forth with her arms held out to her sides like a trapeze artist. Bucky swoops her up into his arms before she can fall and crack her head open. “Jim, you in back?” he calls.

            “Yeah, the twins must’ve had something really great for breakfast.” Jim comes through the doorway with a twin on each hip. They both start squealing the second they see Bucky. They’re lucky no one else is in the pharmacy right now, because once little Joey starts yelping “Papa!” he can’t be stopped. Over her protests, Bucky sets Janey on her feet to take the twins. She ends up in Jim’s arms in a flash anyway. “Figures you’d only show up after I got them all cleaned up,” Jim says. His mouth’s a tight line.

            Bucky kisses Sarah’s head, then Joey’s. “Where’s Steve?”

            Jim’s expression tightens further. “I tried to stop him, but you know what he’s like, Bucky.”

            Bucky’s breath catches in his throat. “Where is he?”

            “It doesn’t matter anyway. They’re not gonna take him, just look at him.”

            “Fuck,” Bucky spits. He passes Joey right back to Jim and, after a moment of frantic indecision, hands Sarah off to Pete. She squirms and whines, but Pete holds her close, blue eyes wide. “Stay here.”

            The Army Recruitment Center is half a mile off. Plenty long for Steve to get his asthma worked up. Plenty long for Bucky’s fear to spin into anger. Steve’s been talking about the Army all his life, even more so since Hitler started annexing everything he could get his hands on in Europe. Bucky watches him read the papers and listen to the radio. He sees the taut line of his scrawny shoulders. He sees the way his jaw goes stiff, ready for a fight. But Steve’s 90 pounds soaking wet, and they have four kids. This is the most irresponsible—the stupidest—the most dangerous idea Steve’s ever had. Bucky’s ready to throttle him for it.

            Until he sees him sitting on the curb in front of the brick building. Steve’s folded nearly in half, knees to his chest. He looks like a kid again. Bucky slows down, comes at him carefully, makes sure his steps are loud enough that Steve can hear him coming even though he’s walking at him from his deaf side.

            Steve’s shoulders hunch up even more. “I’m not sorry,” he rasps.

            Bucky sits beside him, stretching out his legs into the street. He can afford to. Nobody’s driving right now. “I know.”

            Steve shakes his head hard. “I have to do something. Do you know how many people died? How many people have been dying?”

            You are doing something, Bucky wants to say. God, how many people has Dr. Rogers’ clinic saved over the past five years? But that isn’t what Steve means, and Bucky knows it. “We’ll find a different way for you to help.”

            “I don’t have a right to do any less than the other men who’ll fight,” Steve snaps. Bucky stays still, grinding his teeth together so he doesn’t yell _you’d fucking die!_ Steve breathes hard through his nose. “There’ll be a draft. The guys in there were already talking about it.” He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, toward the Recruitment Center.

            “One thing at a time,” Bucky says. The color’s high in Steve’s cheeks. If Bucky leaves him out here on this street, chances are he’ll go pick a fight. He might be a doctor, but that hasn’t curbed his temper—or his fits of temporary stupidity. “Can we just go home? Please. Please, darlin’,” Bucky says quietly. “Let’s just go home to the kids. Pete’s scared outta his mind. And it’s the twins’ birthday. Ain’t we gonna bake a cake?”

            Steve rolls his fingers across his legs, cracking his knuckles. “Okay,” he says, shoulders slumping.

            He keeps glancing back at the Recruitment Center all the way back to the pharmacy.

\---

            Jim’s gone within the week. “I don’t trust ‘em,” he says by way of explanation as he stuffs all of his belongings into the new backpack Steve’s loaned him.

            “Who?” Bucky asks.

            “Anyone. Pete and his friends are already running around pretending to shoot Japs. I know he doesn’t mean me personally, but someone will.” Jim grimaces, all teeth. “I have to get home.”

            Bucky digs in his pocket. It’s payday; he has a roll of bills in there. Not a lot, especially not with six mouths to feed, but enough for a couple train tickets. “Here,” he says, passing the money to Jim. Jim takes it without looking at it, eyes dark. “So you ain’t hopping freight trains. Just pay me back when you come back through here, okay?”

            “Sure, Ace,” Jim says. He tucks the wad of bills in his pocket and shoulders his pack. He’s clean-shaven, now, wearing clean clothes that only have a couple patches on them. He’s a far cry from the ragged hobo who Bucky found sleeping behind the ice cream counter. Bucky’s stomach twists.

            “Wait,” he says as Jim makes to leave. Jim gives him a funny look, but Bucky doesn’t pause to explain. He runs to the front of the pharmacy, where Janey and some of the neighbor girls are playing. It takes a little bribing and some promises he isn’t sure he can keep, but he gets what he wants. He comes back to Jim holding a doll, a nice one with dark eyes and black curls that are only a little mussed. “For your daughter,” he says.

            Jim stares at the doll for a long moment. He takes it slowly; he holds it carefully, hand cradled behind its head the way he held the twins when they were newborns. He doesn’t say thanks, but the gentle way he tucks it in among his rolled blankets is thanks enough.

            Pete cries when Steve and Bucky tell him Uncle Jim’s gone. “I didn’t mean to scare him,” he hiccups into Steve’s shirt. “I won’t play those games no more, I promise.”

            “Wasn’t that,” Bucky says, but Steve catches his eye and shakes his head.

            They don’t hear from Jim for a long time.

\--

            Bucky’s drafted in the spring of ’42. He doesn’t like to think about it: not the fights that lead up to it, the stony looks and silences Steve gives him when he won’t enlist; not the strain of being away at boot camp and temporary losing half the family’s income; not the way they all cry the night before Bucky ships out.

            They all sleep in the big bed that night, the kids curled around the edges and Steve and Bucky tangled up in the middle. Steve sleeps fitfully, jerking awake every few minutes with a gasp or a stifled cry. Bucky doesn’t sleep at all. He presses kiss after kiss to Stevie’s fine hair. He reaches out and touches the twins’ chubby hands, careful not to wake them. He gets a cup of warm milk for Janey when she wakes up fussing, and he lets Pete cuddle up close after a nightmare. This is his family. All Bucky’s ever wanted, all he’s ever hoped for or dreamed about is right here in his arms. And he has to leave. Has to go across the goddamn ocean and get blown apart.

            He knew nothing this fragile and good could last.

\---

            The first man in his company who Bucky meets is a guy named Dum-Dum Dugan. He’s huge, loud, and wears a bowler hat into battle. Bucky looks him over and thinks, hey, maybe he’ll be all right.

            Then there’s Gabe Jones, a black guy who speaks more languages than Bucky’s ever thought to learn. “The ladies love it,” Gabe explains, smiling slyly. He drags them to a country pub in the asshole of France and proves it.

            _We are having a grand old time without you,_ Bucky writes home. _I don’t know if you’d like these guys, Stevie, but Gene would love them._

 _COME HOME SOON PAPA,_ the top of the letter back reads in Pete’s blocky handwriting. Beneath it, Steve’s scrawled, _You better be watching those dummies’ backs, Barnes._

And Bucky does for months. He’s not a sergeant for no reason. He’s the best sharpshooter around. He saves his friends’ asses every day.

            Until the Nazis catch them.

\---

            The cage—because that’s what it is, a cage to trap rats, not even a cell—smells like piss. Bucky’s concentrating on not vomiting at the smell when someone grabs his shoulder. Bucky spins around, snarl on his lips, ready to hit them. “Whoa, Ace,” the guy says, ducking out of the way.

            “Jim?”

            Jim grimaces. “You caught me.”

            “Holy shit.” Bucky drags him into hug, not worried about the thirty other guys in the cell staring. He only lets him go a little, still holding his arms when he pulls back to get a good look at him. Jim’s gaunt, dark circles under his eyes. He looks worse than he did when Steve gave him the job. Bucky’s stomach jolts. “How long have you been in here?”

            Jim shrugs. “Hard to tell. Stopped counting. Had the flu for a while there. I sure could’ve used Doc Rogers. How is he? How’re the kids?”

            “They’re fine. He’s running the clinic double-time, sending medicine with the guys when they get shipped out. They’re all volunteering with the Red Cross.”

            “Petey writing yet?”

            “Oh yeah, he’s been the one sending me most of the letters.” Bucky’s throat closes up the way it always does when he talks about home. He looks up and away, blinking hard.

            Jim, Bucky, Dum-Dum, and Gabe sit around for hours, then days. They take turns keeping watch. They heckle the guards. Their circle grows to include a Brit, Monty, and a Frenchie named Jacques. Gabe helps them cross the language barrier. They talk about home: Jim’s daughter, Dum-Dum’s wife, Monty’s mother, Jacques’ horses, Gabe’s little brother and pack of girlfriends. Bucky shows off the photo of the kids he keeps tucked near his heart. Two weeks in, hungry, dirty, and exhausted, he gives up on keeping secrets.

            “This here’s Stevie,” he says, passing around his favorite photo of him. It’s one Bucky took the first summer they were together. They were at Coney Island, getting ready to ride the Cyclone. Steve’s smiling his crooked smile, face tilted up toward the sun. The shadows make his lashes look even longer than they are. “He’s my kids’ dad.”

            “And if you say a word to anyone, I’ll ruin you before the Krauts can,” Jim cuts in. Bucky glances over at him, wide-eyed, surprised and gratified. Jim’s whole body is drawn tight, ready to spring. “Bucky and Doc Rogers are the best guys around. So keep your mouths shut.”

            “That was my plan,” Monty says delicately.

            Dum-Dum snatches the photo from him and squints at it. “Well, he’s almost as pretty as a dame, isn’t he?”

            “Don’t let him hear you say that,” Bucky and Jim both mumble. Dum-Dum lets out one of his barking laughs.

            The other guys are quiet, but Jacques is smiling like this is completely normal, and Gabe holds the photograph gingerly, as if he’s scared it’ll break. Bucky’s chest loosens. His fingers tremble just slightly. He hadn’t realized how scared he was until he was relieved.

            That’s when Hydra takes him away.

\---

            Agony. Skin tearing from skin, bone from bone. Foam in his mouth and blood on his hands. Water soaking him and then electricity— _Jesus goddamn Christ Stevie where Stevie Steve baby please please Stevie please no no no—_

Questions, always in German, too fast for Bucky to understand. He spits. He bites. He recites: Barnes, James Buchanan, 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan, 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan, 32557038.

            Cold fingers on his wrist. On his pulse. Hydra never checks his pulse. On his shoulder—agony, fuck, he’s going to be sick—something cloth, excruciatingly gentle, wrapping around where his left arm used to be connected to his shoulder. Fingers, a little warmer now, slim, tapping his cheeks. Harder, harder, but still not a slap, not what Hydra usually deals. Bucky’s eyes are open, but he can’t see through the haze.

            “James. James, come on, wake up. James! For God’s sake, James, wake up! Steven will kill me if I don’t get you home. Now get up!”

            Bucky lurches into awareness. Auburn curls brush against his face. The woman has her hand on his good shoulder. He ducks his head away from her and spits bile. “Easy,” she says in her precise posh accent.

            “Peggy?” Bucky rasps. He doesn’t look at the air where his arm should be. He looks at her instead: red lipstick just like in school, same sharp gaze. She’s wearing a brown leather coat. There’s something circular slung across her back. A shield, Bucky realizes. “What the hell are you doing here?”

            Peggy purses her lips. “Rescuing you.”

            “Are you in the Army?” Bucky asks incredulously.

            “Apparently. Come on, up you get.” Peggy’s already gotten Bucky’s restraints off; all he has to do is stand. When he tries, though, the whole world lurches. He can’t help the keening noise he makes. His missing arm’s on fire. Peggy wraps an arm around his waist to keep him from collapsing. “All right,” she soothes. “Careful now. Let’s get you home.”

            Their escape is a blur. Apparently Peggy can throw the shield like a boomerang—she decapitates a couple Nazis with it. Bucky tries not to stare. Then they run into the guy in charge of Hydra, who can pull off his skin to reveal another face beneath it, and Bucky would never be the same after this even if he still had his arm. He and Peggy jump a flaming gorge, and then Gabe and Dum-Dum pick them up in a stolen Hydra tank. Bucky slips into blessed unconsciousness for a long time.

            He wakes up because of the screaming pain in his arm. A motor’s rumbling beneath him, but not the motor of the tank. Bucky sits up shakily and freezes when he realizes he’s on a plane. “Uh,” he says.

            “Oh, good, you’re awake,” a voice calls from the front. “I was getting pretty tired of our one-sided conversation.”

            “Howard?” Bucky says. His mouth tastes bitter. He lies back down to ward off another wave of dizziness.

            “Yessir, the gang’s all here,” Howard says in a disgustingly cheerful voice. “Just flying you to a Red Cross center in London. Have to do something about that arm. Peggy says you’re heading toward a nasty infection.” A boom makes the plane rattle. “Don’t worry,” Howard says. “Those are just bombs.”

            “Oh,” Bucky says, and falls back asleep.

\---

            Bucky refuses a prosthetic. The Red Cross would keep him in London longer for that to make sure he was getting used to the weight of it. Bucky just wants to go home. So he’s honorably discharged, one arm short. Howard flies him across the Atlantic that spring of 1943.

            Peggy, under pressure from Bucky, held back word that Bucky was injured. Bucky knows exactly how Steve would react, and there’s no way he could let him come all the way out to London. It would ruin all of them, and Steve’s needed at home. Besides, Bucky’s fine.

            So when Bucky climbs out of the plane and walks home, Steve and the kids have no idea he’s coming. He feels off-balance, walking with only one arm. He knows people are staring. He keeps his eyes forward and his back straight.

            He’s not thinking about it being three o’clock. He’s not thinking about the kids getting out of school. He’s not thinking that Pete and Janey will spot him from the schoolyard and hop a fence, screaming, “Papa! Papa!” But here they are, barreling into his sides and knocking him clean off his feet. Bucky should tell them to lower their voices, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. He’s got two warm heavy weights on his lap, little mouths kissing his forehead and nose and cheeks, little hands gently patting his shoulder where his arm used to be.

            “Are you home for good?” Janey asks tearfully. Bucky wraps his good arm around her and nods. She shrieks with joy. Pete keeps a hand on Bucky’s bad shoulder. His eyes are clouded. Serious.

            Bucky clears his throat. “Let’s get home. Okay? I gotta see Dad and the babies.”

            Janey and Pete scramble to their feet. As soon as Bucky stands, Janey’s bouncing on her toes, begging, “Carry me. Carry me.”

            “He can’t,” Pete snaps. Janey’s face falls.

            “Hey now,” Bucky says. “Come here, Janey. Pete, let me lean on you.”

            Pete wraps an arm around Bucky’s waist. He’s tall enough now that he can take some of Bucky’s weight. Bucky uses him as a crutch as he lifts Janey up one-handed. They both stagger a little; Janey’s heavier than Bucky remembers. But she wraps her arms and legs around him tightly. Bucky and Pete find their balance. They walk home like that, Janey squealing in Bucky’s ear, Pete a solid presence by his side.

            “We gotta make dinner,” Bucky says when they make it through the door. Janey nods. Pete looks at him doubtfully. Bucky sighs. He knows he’s got to look awful, all pale and sunken-in. All his body wants to do is collapse on the bed—or the couch, or the floor, he isn’t picky at this point. But he wants to do something nice for Stevie, dammit. Has to. “You two, peel potatoes. I’ll get a stew going.”

            It’s eight o’clock by the time Steve comes in through the door. Bucky’s damn lucky that stew’s a food that keeps. He’s swaying on his feet a little, exhaustion really catching up to him, but the jingle of the key in the lock makes him stand up straight. Janey and Pete run to the door and yank it open. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, guess who’s here? Guess who’s back?”

            “Back up, you two, back up, I’m holding the babies—”

            The color drains out of Steve’s face. Bucky swallows hard. He should have showered. Should have brushed his hair and teeth. Should have put on some cologne. Should have done anything to look better than he does, a ragged scrap of a guy. “Hey,” he says. He tries to wave with his left hand. It doesn’t work.

            Steve moves so fast that Bucky almost doesn’t see him. One second, he’s being stared at, and the next the twins are on their feet and Steve’s got his arms around Bucky, tight and sure. Bucky crumples into his hold. His ragged breaths turn into sobs.

            “I got you, I got you,” Steve murmurs, his voice cracking. “Baby doll.”

            “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. They took my arm.”

            “But I got you. Bucky—” Steve kisses Bucky just a little too hard, the way he always does when he’s frantic. Bucky inhales sharply and sucks at his lip, nips him, wants to eat him up. “How? How?”

            “Peggy saved me. She’s gotta shield. The boys keep calling her Captain America. Howard flew me home.” Bucky buries his face in Steve’s hair. He smells like medicine and shampoo and ice cream. He smells like home. Bucky can taste his tears. “I made you dinner,” he mumbles.

            Something small brushes against Bucky’s leg. He startles and looks down. Sarah’s standing there, hand outstretched, staring up at him with wide eyes. Steve scoops her up so she’s at eye level with Bucky. “Look, ZuZu,” he says in the sweetest voice. “Papa’s home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter will be up tomorrow! Also, note that the chapter count has dropped from 12 to 10.


	8. 7. say we'll never part, war's end/christmas eve 1946

          Bucky never gets a prosthetic. He gets used to his one-armed balance, and anyway, they don’t have the money for it. He can’t go back to the docks, but it turns out that the USO in New York needs a bartender. Bucky’s damn good at mixing drinks one-handed. He ends up emceeing, too, when the guy who used to run the mic catches polio and can’t shake it. Steve spends all his waking hours—that he’s not running the free clinic at the pharmacy—volunteering for the Red Cross. There are a lot of guys coming home in shambles. Steve patches them all up. The Health Department keeps trying to shut his clinic down, says he should leave doctoring to the professionals, but all of the sergeants and lieutenants and captains make sure he stays open. Nobody wants to argue with soldiers these days. It’s unpatriotic.

          Pete gets bigger, broad-shouldered and hale in a way that Steve’s never been. Bucky spends half his life yelling up and down the street to get Pete to drop his baseball bat and come in for dinner. He’s starting to sympathize with his ma. Gene teaches Bucky how to give Janey Shirley Temple curls. She’s a little dancer who trails after the chorus girls whenever Bucky lets the kids tag along to nights at the USO. The twins are tornados of energy, chubby legs soon giving way to stringy muscles. Both of them end up asthmatic like Steve. It’s got nothing to do with genetics, everything to being born too early and abandoned in the cold, but Steve blames himself. Bucky can see it in the tense set of his shoulders every time Joey or ZuZu lurches awake, gasping for air.

          The newspapers say that Captain America is a buff blond guy until Howard sets them straight. He’s the richest man in the world now, because of course he is. His plastics factories turned into planes-and-munitions for the war. Now everybody knows Howard Stark as a hardworking patriot who designed the fastest planes in the world. So sure, there’s some grumbling at first about letting an English dame lead the top American covert operations team, but Howard shuts those complainers up pretty fast.

            Peggy shuts them up for good when she takes down Hydra’s leader with poisoned lipstick and her shield.

            V-E day comes in all its glory. Steve ducks out of the clinic, Bucky picks up the kids from school—all of them, now—and they go to church with everyone else. Half the neighborhood has to know by now that Bucky and Steve are a couple of queers, but nobody says a damned thing about them being in Church. Bucky looks along the pew at his Ma with Joey on her lap and Stevie with Pete and ZuZu hanging on either arm. He feels the warm weight of Janey curled in the space where his arm used to be. He looks up at the statue of Mary, arms spread wide, round belly illuminated by squares of green and red stained-glass-light.

            After clean-up in Germany, Jim and the boys head over to the Pacific. _And then I’ll be back at the pharmacy,_ Jim writes. _As long as Steve’s OK with having a teenage girl around._ Bucky’s expecting that to be the far future. Japan’s stubborn, violent in a way that none of the Allies know quite how to handle. But they’re only there for two weeks before V-J day.

           Steve comes home from the pharmacy early. They turn the radio up and dance around the kitchen: with the kids dancing on top of their feet, with Ma clapping along—and just the two of them. They Charleston, Steve’s hands on his knobbly knees and a mischievous grin on his face. They Lindy Hop, Bucky swinging Steve, one-handed, into the air. And they dance slow, too, foreheads pressed together.

            Bucky drinks in Steve’s blue eyes, all bright from laughing, and pretty cheekbones, all red from dancing. “How’re you real?” he whispers.

            “Sap,” Steve whispers back. He gently touches their noses together.

\---

            “Hey, Buck, wouldja look at this!” Jim shakes the newspaper at Bucky. They’re on lunch break, sitting at the ice cream counter at the pharmacy. Steve’s finishing up with his last patient, Maria Martini, making sure her scratchy tonsils aren’t due to an infection.

            Bucky takes the paper from Jim and straightens the crease so he can read the headline properly. “New York’s Own Captain America To Receive Congressional Medal of Honor. Well, there you go, Peggy! Hey, Steve! Peg’s getting the Congressional Medal of Honor today!”

            “Merry Christmas Eve to her,” Steve calls. “No, Maria, no infection. Just keep rinsing with salt water, and you should be all right.”

            “Thank you, Dr. Rogers,” Maria says in her sweet voice. Jim passes her a free scoop of ice cream as she passes through the front room. She waves shyly and then skips out the door, back toward school.

            “Awful cold for ice cream, isn’t it?” Steve says as he walks through the doorway. He squints through the store’s front windows. He’s been doing a lot of squinting lately. If Bucky had the money, he’d buy him glasses. “Looks like snow.”

            “Paper says snow. Hope Peggy doesn’t plan on flying home tonight.”

            “She’s done stupider things,” Steve says darkly. His hand comes up to rub his deaf ear.

            “Aw, doll, don’t be that way. It’s Christmas,” Bucky says.

            “Christmas Eve. Don’t you have work?”

            “Alright, alright.” Bucky slides off his stool and bumps shoulders with Steve. That gets a little smile out of him, a quirk of his lips. Steve hasn’t done a lot of smiling this year. Not with Bucky in and out of jobs. Not with the twins getting sick. Not with having no money. “Come home sometime tonight, pal, or Santa won’t visit you.”

            Steve rolls his eyes. He’s really smiling now. “I’ll be there in time to get the kids ready for Mass.”

            “Before then,” Bucky says. Steve waves him off. Bucky sighs and heads for the door. He holds it open for Rosalie Kelley and her pack of kids. In for their regular appointment, probably. Those snot-nosed kids are always getting over something. They beam and wave at him, though, and Bucky’s never been able to resist a little kid waving at him. At least not since he became a dad.

            It’s been a hard year, but the kids all have presents under the tree, and their stockings will be filled come morning. The air’s crisp and cold. Peggy’s on her way home. And Steve will sit by him, fingers brushing his fingers, all the way through Mass. Bucky can’t help whistling.

           He’s halfway down the block, headed to the school where he works as a janitor, when he passes the gaunt man in the hat. Bucky’s heart lodges itself in his throat. Not the health inspector. Not on Christmas Eve. Not when the cash register’s empty. Not with the Kelleys, all grimy clothes and green snot and chicken pox scars, perched on the chairs in Steve’s makeshift office. Bucky’s ready to turn around and, oh, hell, maybe sock the guy in the jaw to slow him down.

            Jim’s at the pharmacy, he reminds himself. Jim has Steve’s back. Steve can handle the health inspector. He’s done it so many times before.

            “It’ll be fine,” Bucky mumbles. He can’t get himself to whistle the rest of the way to the school.

\---

            The kids tear around the apartment like madmen when Bucky brings them home from school. There’s not enough room for four kids here, let alone four kids and a precarious Christmas tree. Bucky’s tempted to take the spoon out of the cookie dough he’s mixing and whack the kids’ hands with it like Ma used to do to him. But they’re so happy. Pete’s Steve’s height now and bright for his age. He’s been so serious this year, well-aware of how much the family’s struggling—and aware, finally, of how his parents could be arrested if the police found out what they did behind closed doors. But even he jumps on Bucky’s back, laughing. He digs his heels into Bucky’s thighs and demands, “Giddyup!”

            Bucky drops the spoon in the bowl and spins in circles, trying to get Pete dizzy enough that he’ll fall off. All he does is gets them both dizzy enough that they fall over. He rolls on top of Pete and tickles him. “Papa,” Pete protests, his voice rising higher and higher. “Papa! Cut it out!”

            “Papa, ZuZu’s coughing,” Janey says.

            Bucky rolls to his feet. So does Pete, laughter gone. Sure enough, ZuZu’s wheezing like she’ll never catch her breath. Bucky scoops her up and kisses her forehead. “Oh, sweets, you got yourself a fever.” ZuZu inhales harshly and nods, whining. “Let’s get you tucked in. You wanna sleep in the big bed?” ZuZu nods again. Bucky carries her to the bedroom and tucks her in under all the quilts. Somehow, even watery-eyed and feverish, she manages to smile at him. Bucky touches her dimpled cheek. His heart aches. “How’d you manage to get sick on Christmas?”

            “Dunno,” ZuZu says softly. “Sleepy.”

            “All right. You just sleep, okay?” Bucky kisses her too-hot forehead.

            “Papa, Papa, Uncle Gene is here!” Joey calls. “Uncle Gene, whadja bring me for Christmas?”

            “You gotta come get your kids, Barnes! They’re tryna kiss me!”

            The kids in the other room giggle. ZuZu perks up a little, like she wants to clamber out of bed and join them, feverish or not. Bucky gives her his sternest look, though, and she reluctantly leans back against the pillows. “Eyes closed,” he reminds her. She sighs and closes them, mouth in a pout.

            By the time Bucky gets out to the living room, all the kids have Gene pinned on the couch. Joey’s got a tube of lipstick from somewhere, probably Gene’s coat pocket, and is spreading it all over Gene’s face under direction from Janey. “No, his lips,” Janey says. “His lips, Joe!”

            “Do you even know what lips are,” Pete asks, hands on his hips.

            “I’m trying,” Joey grouses. “He keeps wiggling. Hold still, Uncle Gene.”

            “There’s your pa,” Gene says, rolling out from under the kids. “Heya, Buck. Can I talk to you for a minute? Away from these nuts? Enough nuts for a fuckin’ ballet,” he says, grinning at them.

            “Language,” the kids chorus.

            Gene rolls his eyes. “Exactly like Steve.”

            “Don’t I know it,” Bucky says. “Come in the kitchen. Stay here, you guys,” he tells the kids. They whine a little, but they stay in the living room as the grown-ups leave. They might be snooping through the door, but at least they sort of obey. “What’s going on?” Bucky asks Gene once they get into the kitchen. Gene’s a good guy, one of Bucky’s best friends, but he doesn’t come to the apartment often. Spooks him, Bucky thinks, all the domesticity.

            Gene wrings his hands. “I’m moving.”

            “Where? Don’t tell me Jersey.”

            “Nah. Los Angeles. Hollywood.”

            “You’re joking.”

            Gene shakes his head. “Not paying rent on my apartment for the new year. I’m all packed and everything. The cops’ve been all over the bars this year, Bucky. I guess they gotta have somebody to pick on now that the wars over. This ain’t any place for me to stay. Might as well start over. I figure acting won’t be that hard.”

           Bucky takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. His chest hurts at the thought of Gene leaving. Gene’s the first fairy who danced with him at the bars. Before Stevie showed up, Gene was his leading man. Bucky hasn’t worked at the docks in years, but he still can’t imagine New York without Gene. But they’re grown men now, way more grown than they were when they were sucking each other off behind the bar. Everybody’s got to go their separate ways.

           “It takes a lot of character to leave your home town and start all over again.” Bucky pulls some money from his pocket and offers it to Gene.

            Gene groans. “No, Bucky, c’mon. I can’t accept that.”

            “Listen, Gene. I know you’re broke. You drink too much.”

            “I know, but...”

            “What do you want to do, hock your furs, and hats, and everything else you wear to dances? Want to walk to Hollywood?  You know, they charge for meals and rent out there just the same as they do in New York.”

            “Yeah – sure...okay. All right.” Gene takes the money and shoves it in his pocket.

            “You can pay me back when you’re settled, Mr. Big Movie Star.”

            Gene shakes his head. “Look at you. All altruistic, giving away money. That’s not the Bucky Barnes I used to know. I think your husband’s a good influence.” Bucky rolls his eyes. Gene tips his head back and laughs. “I’m glad I know you. Both of you.” He leans forward and kisses Bucky’s cheek. Bucky can feel the smudge of waxy lipstick.

            “Bye, darlings,” Gene says as he leaves the apartment. “Uncle Gene’s going to be a movie star!”

            Bucky scoops the cookie dough onto a tray and pops it into the oven before it can go bad. Then Janey and Pete come running into the kitchen, wanting to practice for the children’s skit at midnight Mass, and Joey almost knocks over the Christmas tree, and ZuZu needs water, and Janey wants her hair recurled, and Pete wants to know why Uncle Gene can dress like a girl when no other guys can. In all the commotion, Bucky doesn’t even notice Steve come through the door.

            “Daddy, you look like Santa with the snow on you!” Janey says. Bucky and Pete look up from where they’re taking cookies off the sheet. Steve’s sitting on the couch, dusted with snow. Joey’s bouncing on the cushion next to him, but Steve isn’t looking at him at all. His cheeks and nose are red.

            “Where’s your coat and hat, punk?” Bucky asks. Steve shrugs irritably. “You’re gonna catch your death out there. ZuZu’s already sick.”

            Steve flinches. He looks up at Bucky, wide-eyed. “How bad?”

            “Gotta fever, but she’s sleeping. Hey, she’ll be fine,” Bucky soothes when Steve’s breaths start coming erratically. “All the kids have colds right now. She’ll shake it off.”

            Steve brushes past Bucky and into the bedroom. The door slams behind him. Janey pauses in the middle of adjusting an ornament on the tree and looks around.

            “Don’t worry about it,” Bucky says gruffly. “Keep practicing for your show.”

            “Petey, come sing with me,” Janey says. Pete leaves the kitchen and perches on the edge of the couch. Together, they start singing, Janey’s voice clear and bright and Pete’s doing the awful pubescent crackle: _Hark! The herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King!_ Joey bounces on the couch and lisps along. Bucky hesitates, then leans against the strip of wall by the bedroom door and tilts his head to listen.

             “I won a flower,” ZuZu says.

            “Where’d they get a flower in all this cold?” Steve asks. Even through the door, Bucky can hear his exhaustion. Frustration, too, curling around each syllable. Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets. The Health Department, he thinks. Must be.

            “Teacher says the florist grew it in a greenhouse that keeps all the hot air in.”

            “Oh, well, I guess teacher would know.” The mattress creaks. “Hey, where do you think you’re going, Miss 99.6 Degrees?”

            “Want to give my flower a drink. If it gets too thirsty, it’ll die. Like Maria Martini’s baby brother.”

            Bucky winces. Steve’d stayed up for three nights straight trying to save that kid last summer. He still cries about it when he thinks no one’s paying any attention. Steve clears his throat. “All right, all right. Here, give Daddy the flower. I'll give it a drink.”

           “Look, Daddy, the petals are falling off. Sew it back together.”

          “I can’t sew a flower together, ZuZu. If it falls apart, it falls apart.”

          “You can sew people back together.”

            Bucky can almost see Steve raising his eyes heavenward. He can definitely hear his put-upon sigh. “Yeah, all right. I’ll sew it back together. Hand it over. Let me see.”

            Bucky doesn’t know what the hell Steve actually does to the flower, but ZuZu doesn’t pitch a fit when, after a couple seconds, he says it’s good as new. “Give the flower a drink,” she commands in the snotty little voice that makes Bucky and Steve call her princess.

            “Will you do something for me?” Steve asks.

            “What?”

            “Go to sleep.”

            “Papa already made me sleep. I want to look at my flower.”

            “It’ll be there when you wake up. Go on, now. Don’t want to get any sicker.”

            ZuZu sighs. “Doctor’s orders?” she asks. Usually, when the kids ask that, Steve will put on his captain’s voice and say, “Doctor’s most serious orders.” He’s silent tonight. Bucky cracks his knuckles inside his pockets.

            “Dream about a whole garden,” Steve says softly. “Dream yourself away from here.”

            There’s a soft sound, lips on skin, and then Bucky’s ducking away from the door so Steve can open it without realizing Bucky was listening in. Steve’s face is even redder than it was before, especially around the eyes. Bucky grabs him by his arm and drags him into the kitchen. Pete’s stealing a cookie from the plate. “Check on the kids,” Bucky orders. Pete stuffs two more cookies in his mouth and darts into the living room.

            Steve twists out of Bucky’s grip. “Get off.”

            “Hey. I ain’t done anything to you, now cut it out,” Bucky snaps. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but Steve’s barely-controlled anger sets him on edge. And now that he’s paying attention, there’s blood crusted around his bad ear, too. When Bucky reaches out to touch it, Steve jerks away. “What happened?” Bucky asks. Steve shakes his head and tries to leave the kitchen. Bucky blocks the doorway. His heart’s thundering away in his chest. “No, goddammit, Rogers, you’re not comin’ home all mad on Christmas Eve with blood on you and not telling me what’s going on.”

            Steve’s gaze flicks over Bucky’s face. “What’s on your cheek?”

            “What?” Bucky reaches a hand up and finds the waxy spot of lipstick. “Oh. Gene came to say goodbye. He’s going to Hollywood.”

            “He give you a little something to remember him by?” Steve says coldly.

            Bucky moves without thinking. He may only have one arm, but that’s one arm enough to shove Steve into the cabinets. The dishes inside them rattle as Steve bounces off of them, chest heaving, fists held out in front of him. “Shut the hell up,” Bucky spits. “Shut up. I don’t give a good goddamn what’s going on with you, you do not get to come into our home with our children and suggest that I’m—”

            “They closed the pharmacy and I’m getting arrested,” Steve says. His voice echoes in the kitchen. In the living room, the kids’ squeaks and squeals cut off abruptly. Bucky takes a step back. His hand goes numb. “They were going to close us anyway because we don’t have any money. They said we can’t do this for free. They kicked the Kelleys out and the baby has a tumor and I hit him, okay? I hit the Health Inspector because he said he knows about us.” Steve’s voice drops, quiet enough that Bucky can barely hear him. “They’re going to take the kids away.”

            Bucky can’t breathe. His face is numb now, too. Smart Pete, classy Janey, rambunctious Joey, precocious ZuZu—and Stevie, brave Stevie with blood on his goddamn deaf ear because he was trying to keep people from dying. Because doing the right thing can get him thrown in jail.

            “We’ll fix this,” he says. His mouth’s running on its own. “We always do, Stevie, c’mon. We’ll figure something out.”

            “Don’t you get it? There’s no fixing this. I’ve ruined everything for everyone.” Steve’s breath rattles. He stands there a minute, staring at Bucky with his jaw set and his blue eyes wet. Then he shoves past Bucky. The front door bangs when he leaves.

            Bucky staggers back against the oven. He runs his hand over his face, pulls his hair, scratches at the back of his neck. Anything, anything to wake up from this nightmare and find himself in the big bed, Steve’s icicle toes against his, the kids snoring in their little bed and Christmas still a day away.

            The floorboards creak. Bucky scrubs his face and looks up to find Pete, Janey, and Joey all peering at him. “What’s wrong with Daddy?” Pete asks in a low, frightened voice.

            Bucky shakes his head hard. He doesn’t have words for this. He can’t tell the kids. Not on Christmas Eve. But they know something’s wrong; even if they didn’t hear all of what Steve said, they heard them fighting. Steve and Bucky have had their fair share of fights, but they’ve always taken them outside, away from the kids.

            “Is Daddy in trouble?” Janey’s voice wavers.

            Bucky swallows. “Yes, baby.”

            “I’ll pray for him,” Joey says quickly. “That helps, right? I’ll pray an Our Father an’ a Hail Mary an’ a Glory Be. That’ll help Daddy, right?”

            “Yeah,” Bucky says slowly. An idea’s hitting him, bit by bit. It’s not formed all the way yet, but fighting overseas taught him to plan as he goes. He picks up the phone and starts dialing. “You guys pray if you want. I gotta make this phone call, okay?”

            He only has to wait a ring or two for a familiar voice to answer. Bucky takes a deep breath. “Hey, Jim, come to the apartment, will ya? It’s an emergency. Stevie needs help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter will be up tomorrow!


	9. 8. make the season bright, christmas eve 1946

          “I’ve got them, you go find him,” Jim says. Joey’s clinging to Bucky’s leg, thumb in his mouth. Bucky detaches him and drops him on the couch as he pulls on his coat. “Gabe’s in town for Christmas. I’ll call his hotel, see if he can help.”

          “What are you going to do?” Pete asks.

            “Find Dad,” Bucky says.

            “But what about after that?” Pete wets his lips. “I heard you guys fighting. The pharmacy doesn’t have money. I don’t want Dad to go to jail.”

            “He’s not going to go to jail for that,” Bucky says shortly. His mouth’s dry.

            Pete’s eyes widen. “Is he gonna go for the other thing? You and him?”

            “No. He’s not going to jail.”

            “But he said—”

            “You shouldn’t have been listening,” Bucky snaps. He does not have time for this conversation. The longer he waits, the more time Steve has to do something completely stupid.

            “Well, I was.” Pete’s hands ball into fists. He’s bigger than Steve already, broader in the shoulders, but furious like this, he looks a lot like him.

             Bucky takes a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth. He does his best not to yell. “You want to help?” Pete nods frantically. “Find people who know Dad. His patients, friends, whoever. People he’s helped. You know he does the clinic for free, right? It’s about time we called in some favors. Tell them the clinic’ll shut down if we don’t get money to pay off the health inspector tonight. D’you understand?”

            This plan’s a gamble. Everyone’s still broke, from the Depression and the War. Maybe they’ll all think Bucky’s grubbing for handouts. And even if they somehow pull together enough funds to keep the clinic open, the health inspector could still turn Steve and Bucky in. But Bucky has to try.

            Pete nods quickly. Bucky takes another deep breath. “Stay in this neighborhood,” he says. “Only go as far as the church, and then turn around. It’s cold, and it’s night. I don’t want you out for long.”

            “Yes, sir,” Pete says. That doesn’t mean he’ll listen, but Bucky loves him, and he trusts him. He’s willing to take that risk.

            The snow’s coming faster as Bucky and Pete leave. They part ways just outside the building. Pete turns left, toward the church. Bucky goes right, toward Ma’s apartment building. Mr. Gower lives there, too. He’s an old man now, but he’s as sharp mentally as he ever was. He hand-picked Steve for this job even with Bucky hanging around, being obviously lovesick. If anyone can rally the rest of the neighborhood behind Steve, it’s Mr. Gower.

            Mr. Gower’s in the lobby when Bucky comes inside, stomping snow off of his shoes. He spots Bucky before Bucky can say anything and comes over, shaking his head. “James, I saw the pharmacy was boarded up. What’s going on? What’s happened to Steve? He’s not sick again, is he?”

            “The Health Inspector closed him right after lunch,” Bucky says. “Said he’s violating something by letting people come in for free. Said he had to shut it down or he’d go to jail.”

            Mr. Gower pulls himself up to his full height. His finger trembles when he shakes it. “I trained that boy! He should know better!” Bucky cringes. He didn’t think Mr. Gower would start talking about Steve like that. “Harold Kopf used to work for me at the pharmacy. Long, long before Steve did. I always taught him, if someone can’t pay for something and they really need it, it’s better to lose the money than lose the patient!”

           Bucky blinks. “You know the Health Inspector?”

           “Oh, do I,” Mr. Gower says darkly. “He lives in this building! I’ll go find him this minute. Thank you for telling me, James. The bloody nerve. Oh, I’ll let him have it.” Mr. Gower shuffles to the stairs and goes up them painfully, one creaking step at a time. Bucky counts up to a hundred in his head to give him a head start before he bounds up the stairs to his Ma’s apartment.

            Ma’s talking to someone on the phone when Bucky bangs on the door. “Hold on a moment,” she says. The door squeaks as she opens it. Her eyes light up when she sees Bucky. “James, quickly, take the telephone. It’s Margaret!”

           Who the hell is Margaret? Bucky wonders. Then Peggy’s posh voice comes over the line. “Bucky, is that you?”

           “Sure is,” Bucky says. “What are you doing on the phone with my ma? Don’t you have a medal to get?”

           “That’s over and done with,” Peggy says dismissively. “Now, listen. Morita called and told me all about Steve. I’m getting on a plane now, and I’ll be home within the hour. If the police make any trouble, you send them directly to me. See how they feel about arresting the finest doctor in New York when Captain America’s breathing down their necks.”

           All the blood rushes to Bucky’s face. His eyes sting. He can’t quite breathe around the lump in his throat. “Peggy, you’re a wonder,” he rasps.

           Peggy snorts. “Save the charm for Steve.” She says more, but Bucky’s not paying attention. He hands the phone back to Ma and spins in a complete circle, trying to work out what to do with himself.

           Ma catches him by the arm and shoves him in the direction of the door. “Go,” she hisses.

            “Come by the apartment,” he says as he leaves. “And bring my old piggybank. There’s gotta be money in there.”

            Ma makes an affronted sound. “I’ll bring you more than that! Now go.”

            The snow’s slowed a little when Bucky hits the sidewalk, but the wind is bitter cold. The walkway’s slick with ice, too. Bucky thinks of Steve out here, no coat, no hat, no scarf, and shudders. Even if they find a way to get him out of this mess, the damn idiot will still come down with pneumonia.

           Bucky loops around the neighborhood, searching for Steve. He looks in alleyways, in the movie theater, in the old lot where they used to play stickball. There are kids throwing snowballs and people shoveling their walks, but no Steve. He’s about to walk further out, toward Harlem and the bar where they met, when he slips on the ice. He tries to balance with both arms before he remembers—he flails—a huge meaty hand grabs him by his bicep and drags him upright.

         “And here I thought you were a dancer, Barnes.”

          Bowler hat, stupid mustache—“Dum-Dum?” Bucky says, straightening up.

          “How you doin’, Sarge?” Dum-Dum slaps Bucky on the back. “How’s the wife and kids?” Bucky flinches. Dum-Dum’s smile slips. “That bad, huh?”

          “Steve’s gonna get arrested,” Bucky says without thinking. “For—because of me.”

          “On Christmas?” Dum-Dum says incredulously.

          “The Health Inspector reported him. He just wanted to get him for something since there ain’t no law against giving people free medicine. I’m running around trying to find him, trying to help, but it’s not gonna matter because he’ll still get arrested. And the kids,” Bucky says, voice cracking. “I’d get him back someday, but the kids.”

           Dum-Dum chews his lip. He looks upward, squinting up at the snow or the streetlamps or maybe God. Bucky hopes he’s praying. “I might be able to help with that.”

          Bucky stands up straight. He runs a hand under his dripping nose. “Whaddya mean?”

          “Well, don’t broadcast this all over the place, but my dad’s the police chief.” Dum-Dum nods at Bucky’s parted mouth. “Timothy Dugan Sr. I wasn’t planning on talking politics on Christmas, but if it’s for you, I guess it’s worth it.”

          Bucky should say “You don’t have to,” but he’s desperate. “Please,” he says. Down the street, a church bell rings. Eight o’clock: getting late. People might be at the apartment by now. Steve might be back. Bucky hopes he’s somewhere safe and warm. He hopes Pete didn’t run into any trouble. “I gotta go check on my kids. If you figure anything out, phone my apartment. It’s under Rogers.”

          “Will do, Sarge.” Dum-Dum tips his hat. He’s as serious as Bucky’s ever seen him. “Merry Christmas.”

           Bucky loops back around to the church. All of the lights are on, reflecting off of the lazy spirals of snow. Voices echo out onto the street: the choir practicing, kids squealing. Bucky shakes off the snow before he steps inside. He spots Pete’s shock of blond hair immediately, up at the manger by the altar. He’s surrounded by other children. All of their faces are deathly serious.

           Bucky starts walking toward them to at least listen in when Father Callaghan catches his arm. Bucky suppresses a grimace. Father Callaghan knows about Steve and Bucky in a way that no one else does—not that the rest of the neighborhood hasn’t guessed, but Ma complained about her homosexual son to that priest all the time when Bucky was a kid. God, the shame from that never goes away. Father’s old now, but he’s got a strong grip and steely eyes. Bucky figures _what the hell_ and lets himself be guided to sit in a back pew.

          “I heard Steven’s in trouble,” Father Callaghan says. Bucky nods. “I saw the sign on the pharmacy. And Peter seems to think that he’s going to be arrested?” Bucky swallows and nods again. He squints at the baby Jesus in the manger. The statue’s big for a baby: Bucky has a photo of the newborn twins on either side of Jesus, both of them half his size.

          Father Callaghan sighs. “Sometimes our country’s laws run counter to God’s laws. Sometimes we think they’re written in accordance with His Word, but in practice, they cause harm that our Heavenly Father never would. It’s a difficult balance to strike, between what God wants and what man wants. I think you know that better than just about anyone else in this church, don’t you.”

         Bucky rubs his chin. “I guess so, Father.”

        “You care about Steven a great deal. Even someone not privy to…intimate details would be able to see that.”

         Bucky ducks his head. “’Til the end of the line,” he says softly. His throat aches. His fingers are so cold.

         “Mm.” Bucky can’t tell if that’s disapproval or neutrality in Father Callaghan’s voice. “Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?” Father Callaghan shakes his head. “You and Dr. Rogers may not follow God’s laws, but that clinic is God’s work, and everyone in this neighborhood knows it. For all of our sakes, I’ll pray that you get it opened back up.”

         Bucky swallows and nods. He hasn’t looked for approval from a priest since before he was in school, but Father Callaghan’s words fill him with a mixture of pride and shame. “Thank you, Father,” he says. He can see Pete coming up behind the priest, trailed by a pack of kids dressed as black-nosed terrycloth sheep. “Peter, let’s go home.”

         “Is Dad there?” Peter asks hopefully.

         “I don’t know. But Aunt Peggy’s on her way.”

         “Peggy Carter?” one of the little girl sheep behind Peter yelps. “Captain America?”

         “Yeah,” Pete says, shrugging. His attention’s focused entirely on Bucky. “Remember, you have to bring your families with you when you come, okay, guys?”

         The sheep scatter, running to moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas, brothers and sisters. Pete grabs Bucky’s empty sleeve and hauls him out of the church. He starts talking as soon as they hit the sidewalk. “Everyone’s coming, Pa. Angie and her sisters and Mary Catherine and Deacon Chris and everyone else I could find. They said they’d bring as much money as they could. That’ll help, right?”

        “Yes,” Bucky says fiercely. “Good job, Pete. Good job.”

         Pete tugs at Bucky’s sleeve. “Is that Grandma?”

         Sure enough, Ma’s standing outside of the apartment building with a bag slung across her shoulders. Gabe’s there, too, face illuminated by the burning tip of his cigarette. When Gabe sees Pete and Bucky, he puts out his cigarette and waves. “He’s home,” he calls.

         Pete lets go of Bucky’s sleeve and runs through the door. On another day, he’d be wild about meeting Gabe, but he thunders up the stairs without giving him so much as a second glance. “Dum-Dum’s on his way,” Gabe says.

        “And so is Mr. Gower,” says Ma. “Oh, he’s in a temper. I could hear him yelling at that young man all the way through the building.”

        Bucky smiles savagely. “Good.” He squeezes Ma’s shoulders and runs up the stairs. The upstairs hallway is crowded with people: Jim’s daughter, the Martinis, the Kelleys, and a slew of reporters with fedoras, notebooks, and cameras. Bucky pushes past all of them to get to the partially open door.

            Jim’s standing just inside. “Yeah, he’s here,” he says as soon as Bucky gets inside. “In the bedroom. ZuZu’s fever broke.”

            “Good. Keep everyone outside until I say.”

            Bucky makes it to bedroom door before his steps falter. Now that he’s inside the apartment and can hear Steve’s voice—not just talking to the kids in the bedroom, no, he’s laughing. Laughing those gorgeous, belly-deep laughs that Bucky hasn’t heard from Steve in what feels like years. Bucky’s heart flutters in his throat and ears.

            “Not a smidge of temperature?” ZuZu asks.

            “Not a smidge of temperature,” Steve says, voice deep and warm.

            Bucky can’t stand it anymore. He pushes open the door to see Steve cradling ZuZu in his arms. Pete, Janey, and Joey all cling to him. Steve’s lip is cracked, and there’s dried blood on his forehead, but he’s peppering ZuZu with gentle kisses. When Pete leans harder on Steve’s shoulder, Steve tilts his head and kisses his cheek, too. There’s so much tenderness—Bucky can’t stand to stay away from it. His chest fills and aches with it.

            When he speaks, his voice shakes. “Steve. Darling!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter will be up tomorrow!


	10. 9. we'll take a cup of kindness yet, christmas eve 1946

            Steve’s arms are bony as ever, and the kids dangling from his shoulders make it hard to hold him tight, but Bucky does his best. Steve’s gasping against Bucky’s chest, his voice cracking. “Buck. Buck, I’m sorry.”

           “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. Stevie. Stevie, where the hell have you been?” Bucky kisses the top of his head. “I looked all over town for you.”

            “I know. I’m sorry.”

            “Stevie, Jesus. Never, never do that again, I don’t care how bad it gets. Just stay.”

            “I will, I will, I promise. I saw—” Steve steps back, staring up at Bucky. He touches Bucky’s cheek with his long cold fingers. “You’re real? I’m real? We’re really here?”

            “Yeah. Yeah, we are. See?” Bucky dips his head and kisses Steve, hard and sure. He can feel the whine in Steve’s throat. The kids groan and whistle. ZuZu’s giggling on his shoulders.

            “You have no idea what's happened to me,” Steve breathes when Bucky pulls away.

             Bucky wants to know, he really does, but he can hear feet coming up the stairs. He stops Steve with a kiss and drags him into the front room. ZuZu’s still hanging from Steve’s shoulders. Gabe and Ma are just finishing setting up a card table in front of the Christmas tree.

             Gabe grins and waves them over. “C’mere, c’mere. They’re on their way.”

             Bucky steers Steve to a spot behind the table. The kids follow. Joey tries to climb on the wobbly-legged table. Bucky and Steve move as one, both nudging him down. Bucky bumps shoulders with Steve, grinning at him. Steve moves ZuZu to his hip. His forehead’s wrinkled, but he smiles at Bucky anyway.

             The footsteps and voices outside the room get even louder. Ma rests a hand on the doorknob, eyes twinkling. “Shall I let them in, boys?”

             Bucky’s smiling so hard he feels like his face’ll split. “Sure thing, Ma.”

             The second Ma drags open the creaky old door, people flood into the apartment. Steve stands up straight, eyes wide. “Bucky, what’s going on?”

            “We’re saving your ass, Doc,” Jim says cheerfully. He’s carrying a whole clothes basket filled with money. He dumps it onto the table. The bills slide to the floor, followed by a sea of coins. Joey scrambles around picking up all the coins and shoving them in his pockets.  

            In come the Kelleys, the Martinis, the families from the church, all carrying shoe boxes and pocketsful of money. Steve presses against Bucky. “What—”

            “Dr. Rogers,” a blonde slip of a woman with a baby in her arms says. She sets a coffee pot of money on the table. “Thank you for taking my babies,” she says, turning toward where Pete and Janey watch from the couch. She lifts her baby’s chubby hand and makes it wave. After a moment’s hesitation, Pete raises his hand and waves back. Janey ducks behind him, hiding, but her eyes twinkle mischievously. “Oh, they’re so big now!”

            “Miss,” Steve says softly. “How’s—how’s this one?” He reaches out and gently squeezes the baby’s hand.

            “Just fine, thanks to you. Oh, I’d better get out of the way.” Pete and Janey’s ma steps aside just in time for Mr. Martini to drop a mixing bowl overflowing with cash on the table.

            “I busted the jukebox at my restaurant,” Mr. Martini says. “And look what Mr. Gower brought.”

            Mr. Gower comes up just behind Mr. Martini, carrying a large glass jar jammed full of notes. Steve’s jaw drops. “Mr. Gower!”

            Mr. Gower’s all smiles. “I made the rounds of my charge accounts,” he says, spilling the notes onto the table with shaking hands. “And I shook down that rotten Health Inspector, too.”

            Bucky laughs. ZuZu giggles, too, eyes wide and bright. Then she sits up straight in Steve’s arms. “Uncle Gene, you came back!”

            Sure enough, Gene’s pushing his way through the door. He must’ve come straight from the bars—he’s in his mink coat, not even pretending to be anything other than queer. He bustles over to Steve, grabs him by the shoulders, and kisses him on both cheeks. “Me too,” ZuZu insists. Gene chucks her under her chin and kisses her nose.

            “I’m not going, Buck.” He pulls the money Bucky gave him out of his coat pocket and passes it to him. “I changed my mind.” Bucky’s heart swoops and dives. Gene winks. “Oh, and here’s something for you, pretty girl,” he adds. He reaches into his pocket again and passes ZuZu a pocket watch on a chain. The case is dented and dull, but it looks like genuine gold. ZuZu dangles it from her hand and watches the tiny clock spin. Steve’s face is so red Bucky’s sure it’ll be like that permanently.

            “Just a minute! Quiet everybody!” Jim Morita calls. “Quiet, quiet. Now get this, it's from London. Mr. Gower cabled you need cash, stop. My office instructed to advance you up to twenty-five thousand dollars, stop. Hee-Haw and Merry Christmas! Howard Stark.”

            “Holy shit,” Steve breathes.

            “Language, Daddy,” ZuZu scolds. Bucky bursts out laughing. Steve doesn’t even scowl at either of them, just presses wet kisses to ZuZu’s cheek.

            “Mr. Martini,” Bucky calls over all the noise. “How about some wine?”

            “I’ll run downstairs and get my punch bowl,” Mr. Martini says.

            “Thanks. And—somebody turn on the radio, get us some music.”

            “Oh, Papa, you don’t have to do that. We can sing,” Janey says.

            The little costumed sheep cheer. None of them start off in the same key—or the right key, really, Bucky wants to grab some earmuffs—but they get a chorus of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” going. The words come naturally to Bucky. Stevie, too, with his gorgeous deep voice. Bucky leans closer to him just to hear it: “Peace on Earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.”

            Mr. Martini comes back in, carrying a punch bowl and a couple bottles of wine. More of his kids trail after him, carrying glasses. “I saw her on the stairs,” he says as he sets the bowl heavily on the table.

            Steve frowns. “Who?” Then his jaw drops. “Peggy!”

            Peggy’s in her olive dress uniform, covered in melting snow. She still has her shield slung across her back. Another woman’s following her, a waitress, looks like, in her striped uniform. She leans against the doorway and pulls off her driving gloves with her teeth. Bucky salutes Peggy lazily. She rolls her eyes at him before she reaches out and presses an envelope into Steve’s hand. “Well, there you are, Steve. How are you?”

            Steve’s breaths come in irregular hitches. He’s staring at her the way he did after he dragged her out of the freezing water, like he’s never seen her before and might never see her again. “Peggy…Peggy…”

“Don’t look at me. Look at what’s in your hand.” Peggy smiles wryly.

            Steve fumbles with the envelope, trying to rip it open one-handed. Bucky sets his wine glass on the table and helps Steve tear open the envelope. A letter slips out. Bucky smoothes the creases and then freezes, heart pounding in his ears. The presidential seal gleams in the light.

            “It’s not quite an Executive Order, but a letter of approval ought to look nice in the clinic window, don’t you think?” Peggy says primly.

            Steve opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. His chest heaves. Bucky’s mouth is dry. He stares so long at the signature, Harry S. Truman, that it doesn’t look like words anymore.

            “I got her here from the airport as quickly as I could,” the girl in the doorway says. “The fool flew all the way up here in a blizzard.”

            Peggy gives her a stern look. “Oh, hush, Angie. I’ve done worse.”

            Ma says, “Margaret, how about your banquet in Washington?”

           “Oh, I left right in the middle of it as soon as I spoke with you.”

            Jim hands Peggy a glass of wine. She sniffs it carefully before giving him an approving nod. “Good idea, Morita. A toast... to Dr. Steven Rogers. The richest man in town!”

            The room shakes with everyone’s cheers. Steve trembles next to Bucky, swallowing again and again. Bucky doesn’t care who’s watching. He wraps an arm around his waist and squeezes him tight, steadying him. Steve sags against him. “This real?” he whispers.

            “Sure is, doll,” Bucky murmurs.

            Steve blinks up at Bucky, eyes wide and wet. Then his face breaks into the most brilliant smile. “Hot dog.”

            A honking, wheezing sound fills the room. Maria Martini’s got her accordion out and is trying to squeeze music out of it. Bucky cringes. ZuZu claps her hands over her ears. “You’re lucky you’re deaf, Daddy,” she says loudly. Steve gives her a scolding look. But the sound resolves into the wavering notes of “Auld Lang Syne.” ZuZu slowly uncovers her ears. Steve shakes his head and kisses her cheek.

            Everyone’s singing along: in key, out of key, it doesn’t matter. There’s Jim and Gabe, pouring a glass for Dum-Dum, who’s just made it through the door; Pete, bright-eyed, peppering them with questions; Peggy and her friend, heads tipped together by the door; Maria Martini, standing up straight and playing her accordion while her father and siblings mix more punch; Gene, singing for all he’s worth with Janey perched on his shoulders; Ma and Mr. Gower, helping Joey count out all the money.

            And Steve. Beautiful, brave, incredible Stevie with the color high in his cheeks and ZuZu perched on his hip. Steve, who’s so goddamned loved by everyone in this apartment and by Bucky. Bucky’s throat is tight, but his chest is wide open, too full of Steve. He squeezes Steve’s bony hip hard. He hopes Steve understands how fiercely he wants to kiss him.

            The Christmas tree shakes. Up above their heads, a tiny silver bell rings. ZuZu points up at it. “Look, Daddy. Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.”

            Steve squints up at it. His skin crinkles around his eyes when he smiles. “That’s right, sweetheart. That’s right.” He turns his face toward Bucky. “Hey, jerk.”

            Bucky smirks. “What, punk?”

            Steve grabs him by the collar and kisses him in front of God and everybody. ZuZu puts her hands together and cheers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Remember: No man's a failure who has friends. <3


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